29^th World Cardiology Conference

Biography

Biography: Marco Bertini

Abstract

Statement of the Problem: Iron deficiency (ID) either with or without anemia (IDA), is an important comorbidity in heart failure (HF) patients and is associated with a worse prognosis. ID is present in approximately 50% of patients with HF with reduced left ventricular ejection fraction (HFrEF) and is an independent predictor of reduced functional capacity and mortality. Inexpensive and readily available oral iron supplementation, also at high dosage, has been demostrated to be uneffective in improving exercise capacity over 16 weeks ( ). Oral iron replacement treatment with the new compound Feralgine™ (a new patented co-processed oral iron preparation between ferrous bisglicinate chelate and sodium alginate) has recently demostrated to be more available than the gold-standard ferrous sulphate. The purpose of this observational study was to preliminarily understand the effectiveness of Feralgine™ supplementation in improving ID, IDA and HF symptoms during a 12 weeks treatment course.

Orientation:   A preliminary  study was been conducted on 41 HF patients (29 men and 12 women aged between 73 and 87 years old) affected by chronic heart failure (CHF) (38 patients are class III NYHA and 3 patients are IV Class NYHA) plus ID or IDA: 25 patients (60%) with HFrEF <40% and 16 (40%) with HFrEF between 40% and 50%. Every patient has been supplemented for 12 weeks with 30 mg of elemental iron belonging to Feralgine™ maintaining the previous HF drug’s treatment

Findings: At the end of oral iron supplementation (12 weeks) an increase was observed in Hb and ferritin, and surprisingly, 36 of the 41 patients (88%) had reduced their NYHA class from III to II.

Conclusion & Significance: To our knowledge this is the first time that an oral iron supplementation with low elemental iron (30 mg/daily) has shown to be effective in improve HF symptomatologies in ID/IDA-HF associated patients