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Let Us Not Forget the Long-term Safety Concerns of Sacubitril/Valsartan | JAMA Cardiology | vlog

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Comment & Response
ܱ2017

Let Us Not Forget the Long-term Safety Concerns of Sacubitril/Valsartan

Author Affiliations
  • 1Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
  • 2Johns Hopkins Coronary Care Unit, Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland
JAMA Cardiol. 2017;2(7):818-819. doi:10.1001/jamacardio.2017.0423

To the Editor In his Viewpoint, Packer1 bemoans the slow uptake of sacubitril/valsartan by US practitioners and delivers an inspirational rallying cry for increased use of this new heart failure medication. That sacubitril/valsartan is the first new class of heart failure therapy with proven mortality benefit in over a decade cannot be understated. While we agree with most of his erudite views, we worry Packer is underestimating the long-term adverse effects of this medication. Foremost among these are concerns for amyloid deposition in the eye and brain, theoretically leading to visual and cognitive impairment. Packer states that even if these adverse events are real, “theoretical concerns about toxicity occurring after 10 to 20 years are irrelevant if these durations exceed the lifespans of patients who should be treated with the drug” and that “it serves little purpose to speculate about a future that would not exist in the absence of having been treated with the drug.”1

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