Advertisement  

July 30, 2014
Potassium Supplements Reduce Mortality for HF Patients on Loop Diuretics

Philadelphia—Supplementing loop diuretics with potassium improves survival rates for heart failure patients compared to those who don’t add potassium, according to a new study.

University of Pennsylvania researchers also found that the beneficial effect is greater with higher diuretic doses. The report was published online recently in PLOS ONE.

Potassium supplements often are prescribed with loop diuretics, which can flush out necessary potassium, but the practice is not universal, at least partly because the survival benefit was not previously studied, according to the article’s background.

For the retrospective study, researchers reviewed Medicaid data from 1999 and 2007 in five states, focusing on 180,000 patients who initiated loop diuretics along with supplemental potassium and an equal number who started loop diuretics without the supplement.

Study subjects all had received potassium supplementation as a preventive measure, not because of a deficiency, according to the report. In addition, only patients receiving supplemental potassium in solid, not liquid, formulations were studied out of concern that swallowing difficulties could indicate a medical impairment.

With primary endpoints including all-cause death, outpatient-originating sudden cardiac death and ventricular arrhythmia, results indicated that, in patients taking at least 40 mg/day of furosemide, mortality was reduced by 16% with supplemental potassium compared to the group receiving no supplements.

“Our findings provide evidence that adding potassium supplementation may increase survival rates among patients taking loop diuretics,” said lead author Charles E. Leonard, PharmD, MSCE. “Nonetheless, because this is the first such study of this question, we hope that others confirm these results in independent studies.”

Mortality rate also was reduced in patients who combined potassium supplements with less than 40 mg/day of furosemide. The authors note, however, that the reduction in that situation was 7%, which was not statistically significant.

“Using potassium supplementation for patients receiving loop diuretic therapy may be a relatively inexpensive way to save lives,” added senior author Sean Hennessy, PharmD, PhD. “In today's climate of seeking cost-effective measures to keep patients healthy, this is a therapy that certainly merits additional consideration.”




U.S. Pharmacist Social Connect