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Diuresis to achieve decongestion is a central aim of therapy in patients hospitalized for acute decompensated heart failure (ADHF). While multiple clinical trials have investigated initial diuretic strategies for a designated period of time, there is a paucity of evidence to guide diuretic titration strategies continued until decongestion is achieved. The use of urine chemistries (urine sodium and creatinine) in a natriuretic response prediction equation accurately estimates natriuresis in response to diuretic dosing, but a randomized clinical trial is needed to compare a urine chemistry-guided diuresis strategy with a strategy of usual care. The urinE chemiStry guided aCute heArt faiLure treATmEnt (ESCALATE) trial is designed to test the hypothesis that protocolized diuretic therapy guided by spot urine chemistry through completion of intravenous diuresis will be superior to usual care and improve outcomes over the 14 days following randomization. ESCALATE will randomize and obtain complete data on 450 patients with acute heart failure to a diuretic strategy guided by urine chemistry or a usual care strategy. Key inclusion criteria include an objective measure of hypervolemia with at least 10 pounds of estimated excess volume, and key exclusion criteria include significant valvular stenosis, hypotension, and a chronic need for dialysis. Our primary outcome is days of benefit over the 14 days after randomization. Days of benefit combines patient symptoms captured by global clinical status with clinical state quantifying the need for hospitalization and intravenous diuresis. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT04481919., Competing Interests: Disclosures ZC receives research funding from AstraZeneca and Cumberland Pharmaceuticals and consulting fees from Roche and Translational Catalyst. JHH receives research funding from the NIA, Boehringer Ingelheim and Merck. JL receives research funding from AstraZeneca, Volumetrix, Sensible Medical, NIH and consulting fees from AstraZeneca, Abbott, Alleviant, Boehringer Ingelheim, Boston Scienrific, CVRx, Edwards Lifesciences, Medtronic, Merck, Vascular Dynamics, VWave, WHiteswell. CJL reports research grants and contracts to institution from NIH, CDC, DoD, AbbVie, Entegrion, Endpoint Health, bioMerieux, and patents for risk stratification in septic shock unrelated to the current work. JOW receives research funding from Bristol Myers Squibb. EDS receives personal fees as an Associate Editor for the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology and royalties as an author for UptoDate. JT reports grants and/or personal fees from 3ive labs, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, Astra Zeneca, Novartis, Cardionomic, MagentaMed, Reprieve inc., FIRE1, W.L. Gore, Sanofi, Sequana Medical, Otsuka, Abbott, Merck, Windtree Therapeutics, Lexicon pharmaceuticals, Precardia, Relypsa, Regeneron, BD, Edwards life sciences, and Lilly. In addition, JMT has a patent Treatment of diuretic resistance issued to Yale and Corvidia Therapeutics Inc, a patent Methods for measuring renalase issued to Yale, and a patent Treatment of diuretic resistance pending with Reprieve inc. SPC reports consulting with Boehringer Ingelheim, Reprieve Cardiovascular, Aboott and research support from PCORI, NIH, DOD, and Beckman Coulter., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: Dapagliflozin, a sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitor, reduces cardiovascular death and worsening heart failure in patients with chronic heart failure and reduced ejection fraction. Early initiation during an acute heart failure (AHF) hospitalization may facilitate decongestion, improve natriuresis, and facilitate safe transition to a beneficial outpatient therapy for both diabetes and heart failure., Objective: The objective is to assess the efficacy and safety of initiating dapagliflozin within the first 24 hours of hospitalization in patients with AHF compared to usual care., Methods: DICTATE-AHF is a prospective, multicenter, open-label, randomized trial enrolling a planned 240 patients in the United States. Patients with type 2 diabetes hospitalized with hypervolemic AHF and an estimated glomerular filtration rate of at least 30 mL/min/1.73m 2 are eligible for participation. Patients are randomly assigned 1:1 to dapagliflozin 10 mg once daily or structured usual care until day 5 or hospital discharge. Both treatment arms receive protocolized diuretic and insulin therapies. The primary endpoint is diuretic response expressed as the cumulative change in weight per cumulative loop diuretic dose in 40 mg intravenous furosemide equivalents. Secondary and exploratory endpoints include inpatient worsening AHF, 30-day hospital readmission for AHF or diabetic reasons, change in NT-proBNP, and measures of natriuresis. Safety endpoints include the incidence of hyper/hypoglycemia, ketoacidosis, worsening kidney function, hypovolemic hypotension, and inpatient mortality., Conclusions: The DICTATE-AHF trial will establish the efficacy and safety of early initiation of dapagliflozin during AHF across both AHF and diabetic outcomes in patients with diabetes., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: A critical challenge for physicians facing patients presenting with signs and symptoms of acute heart failure (AHF) is how and where to best manage them. Currently, most patients evaluated for AHF are admitted to the hospital, yet not all warrant inpatient care. Up to 50% of admissions could be potentially avoided and many admitted patients could be discharged after a short period of observation and treatment. Methods for identifying patients that can be sent home early are lacking. Improving the physician's ability to identify and safely manage low-risk patients is essential to avoiding unnecessary use of hospital beds., Methods: Two studies (STRATIFY and DECIDE) have been funded by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute with the goal of developing prediction rules to facilitate early decision making in AHF. Using prospectively gathered evaluation and treatment data from the acute setting (STRATIFY) and early inpatient stay (DECIDE), rules will be generated to predict risk for death and serious complications. Subsequent studies will be designed to test the external validity, utility, generalizability and cost-effectiveness of these prediction rules in different acute care environments representing racially and socioeconomically diverse patient populations., Results: A major innovation is prediction of 5-day as well as 30-day outcomes, overcoming the limitation that 30-day outcomes are highly dependent on unpredictable, post-visit patient and provider behavior. A novel aspect of the proposed project is the use of a comprehensive cardiology review to correctly assign post-treatment outcomes to the acute presentation., Conclusions: Finally, a rigorous analysis plan has been developed to construct the prediction rules that will maximally extract both the statistical and clinical properties of every data element. Upon completion of this study we will subsequently externally test the prediction rules in a heterogeneous patient cohort., (Copyright © 2012 Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: The aim of this study is to assess the role of novel biomarkers for the diagnostic evaluation of acute coronary syndrome (ACS)., Methods: Among 318 patients presenting to an emergency department with acute chest discomfort, we evaluated the diagnostic value of 5 candidate biomarkers (amino terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide [NT-proBNP], ischemia modified albumin, heart fatty acid binding protein, high-sensitivity troponin I [hsTnI], and unbound free fatty acids [FFAu]) for detecting ACS, comparing their results with that of conventional troponin T (cTnT)., Results: Sixty-two subjects (19.5%) had ACS. The sensitivity and negative predictive values of NT-proBNP (73%, 90%) and hsTnI (57%, 89%) were higher than that of cTnT (22%, 84%). Unbound free fatty acids had the highest overall combination of sensitivity (75%), specificity (72%), and negative predictive values (92%) of all the markers examined. A significant increase in the C-statistic for cTnT resulted from the addition of results for NT-proBNP (change 0.09, P = .001), hsTnI (change 0.13, P < .001), and FFAu (change 0.15, P < .001). In integrated discrimination improvement and net reclassification improvement analyses, NT-proBNP, hsTnI, and FFAu added significant diagnostic information to cTnT; when changing the diagnostic criterion standard for ACS to hsTnI, FFAu still added significant reclassification for both events and nonevents. In serial sampling (n = 180), FFAu added important reclassification information to hsTnI., Conclusion: Among emergency department patients with symptoms suggestive of ACS, neither ischemia modified albumin nor heart fatty acid binding protein detected or excluded ACS, whereas NT-proBNP, hsTnI, or FFAu added diagnostic information to cTnT. In the context of hsTnI results, FFAu measurement significantly reclassified both false negatives and false positives at baseline and in serial samples., (Copyright © 2011 Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.)