A discharge prescription for spironolactone had no association with 30-day all-cause readmission among older, hospitalized Medicare beneficiaries with heart failure and reduced ejection fraction who were eligible for spironolactone therapy. The study, led by researchers at Georgetown University and the VA Medical Center of Washington DC, and co-authored by Dr. Thomas Love, Director of Biostatistics and Evaluation at the Center for Health Care Research and Policy, was recently published in the International Journal of Cardiology.
Therapy with evidence-based heart failure (HF) medications has been shown to be associated with lower risk of 30-day all-cause readmission in patients with HF and reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF), but in this study of 2443 Medicare beneficiaries with heart failure and left ventricular ejection fractions at or below 35%, spironolactone showed no association with either 30-day all-cause mortality or heart failure readmission, either overall or within a propensity-score matched cohort of patients receiving and not receiving the drug. Dr. Love is a leader in the design and analysis of observational studies using propensity score methods.