COMPARE and Pediatric Heart Network Investigator trials: Losartan finally validated in humans with Marfan, but much work remains!

Authors

  • Magdi Yacoub Qatar Cardiovascular Research Center, Doha, Qatar
  • Mark Radford Qatar Cardiovascular Research Center, Doha, Qatar

Abstract

[First paragraphs of article]

A landmark study by Habashi et al1in 2006 documented for the first time both the prevention and reversal of structural changes in the aorta associated with Marfan syndrome, via pharmacological means. This study, carried out in a rat model, concluded that such results were due to an inhibitor effect by the drug losartan on TGB-β1 (Figure 1).

Habashi's paper prompted some physicians, in the absence of human trials, to begin the clinical off-label use of losartan on Marfan patients, arguing that this was justified due to the drug's excellent safety profile. This has caused some controversy.

 

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Published

2017-06-30

Issue

Vol. 2014 No. 4 (2014)

Section

Lessons from the trials

License

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license CC BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.