Tolvaptan is widely used in elderly patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) , but the effect of different doses of tolvaptan on the prognosis of elderly CHF patients is unclear.
To investigate the effect of two commonly used doses of tolvaptan, 7.5 mg/d and 15.0 mg/d, on the prognosis of elderly patients with CHF.
This is a retrospective cohort study. This study selected patients (age≥80 years) with CHF treated with tolvaptan in the health care ward of the 960th Hospital of PLA Joint Logistics Support Force of China from February 2016 to February 2022, and analyzed their clinical data. The patients were divided into 7.5 mg/d and 15.0 mg/d groups based on the dose of tolvaptan. The end point of follow-up was the occurrence of all-cause mortality or cardiovascular mortality or until the end of follow-up. This study used Kaplan-Meier method to perform survival curves analysis and used Cox proportional hazards regression models to analyze the effect of two doses of tolvaptan on all-cause mortality and cardiovascular mortality in elderly patients with CHF.
This study enrolled 212 elderly patients with CHF, and the follow-up was 374.5 (155.5, 940.5) days. 124 (58.5%) patients died from all-cause mortality and 54 (25.5%) patients died from cardiovascular mortality during the follow-up. Kaplan-Meier survival curve showed that 15.0 mg/d group had higher rates of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular mortality compared with 7.5 mg/d group (P=0.004 3, P=0.001 2) . Multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression model analysis showed that after adjusting for age, NYHA cardiac functional class, chronic kidney disease, diabetes, hypertension, coronary artery disease, diuretics, albumin (ALB) , serum N-terminal brain natriuretic peptide precursor (NT-proBNP) and estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) , 15.0 mg/d group had a 1.03-fold increased risk of all-cause mortality〔HR=2.03, 95%CI (1.34, 2.99) 〕and 1.51-fold increased risk of cardiovascular mortality〔HR=2.51, 95%CI (1.40, 4.50) 〕compared with 7.5 mg/d group. This study stratified analysis by eGFR, age, ALB, and NT-proBNP, the results showed that tolvaptan 15.0 mg/d group had higher rates of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular mortality.
Tolvaptan 15.0 mg/d group had higher rates of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular mortality compared with tolvaptan 7.5 mg/d in elderly CHF patients (age≥80 years) . We may recommend using low-dose tolvaptan.
Immunotherapy represented by programmed death protein-1 (PD-1) inhibitors has gradually become the standard treatment of advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in recent years, changing the treatment landscape of advanced NSCLC. However, most PD-1-related studies excluded patients with NSCLC more than 70 or 75 years, resulting in relatively limited data about the efficacy and safety of PD-1 inhibitors in elderly patients.
This study aims to evaluate the efficacy and safety of PD-1 inhibitors in elderly patients with advanced NSCCL.
This study selected elderly patients with advanced NSCLC over 65 years who received PD-1 inhibitors monotherapy in Department of Thoracic Surgery and Oncology of the Fourth Affiliated Hospital of Gansu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine from October 2018 to November 2021. A total of 63 elderly patients with NSCLC were included. The PD-1 inhibitors of the study were approved in Chinese market, including camrelizumab, sintilimab and pembrolizumab. The data about efficacy and safety of PD-1 inhibitors were collected in the hospital electronic medical record system. All patients were followed up regularly to obtain the long-term prognostic data until 2022-03-15. The efficacy data of PD-1 inhibitors, the prognosis of elderly patients with advanced NSCLC and the toxicity and side effects of PD-1 inhibitors were collected. Cox comparative risk model was used to explore the influencing factors of the prognosis of elderly patients with advanced NSCLC.
The median age of the 63 elderly patients with advanced NSCLC was 71 (65, 89) years. The best response assessment during PD-1 inhibitors therapy showed that no patients had complete response, 14 patients had partial responses, 21 patients had stable status, and 28 patients had progressive status. The objective response rate (ORR) of patients with advanced NSCLC treated with PD-1 inhibitors monotherapy was 22.2% (14/63) , and the disease control rate (DCR) was 66.7% (14/21) . Prognostic data showed that the median progression free survival (PFS) of the 63 patients with advanced NSCLC was 3.3 (2.0, 4.6) months and the median overall survival (OS) was 10.2 (6.1, 14.3) months. Among 63 elderly patients with NSCLC, 46 of them (73.0%) had treatment related adverse reaction during PD-1 inhibitors monotherapy, and the rate of grade 3 or above adverse reactions was 14.3%. The most common adverse reactions were fatigue, diarrhea, rash and abnormal liver function with the rates of 23.8% (15/63) , 19.1% (12/63) , 15.9% (10/63) and 14.3% (9/63) , respectively. Cox comparative risk model analysis suggested that ECOG performance status and number of metastatic lesions might be independent factors of PFS in patients with advanced NSCLC treated with PD-1 inhibittors.
PD-1 blockades monotherapy demonstrated potential efficacy and acceptable safety for elderly patients with NSCLC. ECOG performance status and number of metastatic lesions might be potential risk factors that predict the PFS of the patients.
Hypertension in young and middle-aged populations has a prevalence of approximately 20% according to relevant epidemiological reports, and is increasing in the light of the annual update, which is probably related to sympathetic excitation induced by stressful workloads and nervousness, and mainly characterized by elevated diastolic hypertension. There is an evident correlation between hypertension and long-term risk of coronary heart disease or stroke in the populations, but the long-term risk for cardiovascular events and mortality could be significantly reduced by active and appropriate antihypertensive treatment. β-blockers are medications that reduce blood pressure via inhibiting sympathetic activity, which are more suitable for young and middle-aged people primarily with diastolic hypertension. We did a review of the latest advances in epidemiology and pathogenesis of hypertension and major antihypertensive efficacies of β-blockers as well as precautions during the use of β-blockers in young and middle-aged populations, providing clinicians with evidence on treating the disease.
