comparison of medical therapy, pacing and defibrillat ion in heart failure (COMPANION) trial terminated early; combined biventricular pacemaker-defibrillators reduce all-cause mortality and hospitalization

The COMPANION trial was terminated prematurely after recruiting 1600 patients, as initial results clearly and for the first time demonstrated survival benefit of resynchronisation and combined device (biventricular pacemaker with defibrillator capacity) therapy in heart failure. The combined primary end-points of all-cause mortality and all-cause hospitalisation in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy and heart failure of poor functional class was reduced by 20% with cardiac resynchronisation therapy (CRT) with or without defibrillator capacity. More importantly, mortality was reduced by 40% (from 19% to 11%) in patients implanted with combined devices, while CRT alone gave an intermediate mortality of 15%.