Long term event-free survival following cell-based therapy in patients with cardiomyopathy: the HYPERION...

There is limited long-term clinical outcome data supporting the use of cell-based therapy to treat heart failure. The HYPERION study (NCT03071835) followed long-term outcomes of patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy (ICM) and non-ischemic cardiomyopathy (NIDCM) who received mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC). We hypothesized that improved cardiac parameters predict longer event-free survival.

We performed a Kaplan-Meier analysis to examine event-free survival as the primary outcome. Time-to-event information was captured from all eligible participants. Endpoint events were defined as death (all-cause), Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) placement, or Heart Transplant. Subjects were categorized based on increase in Left Ventricular Ejection Fraction (LVEF) or decrease in Left Ventricular End Diastolic Volume (LVEDV) for comparisons within disease etiologies.

There were 134 men and 21 women, with mean age 60.0 ± 11.0 years. There were 121 (78%) with ICM and 34 (22%) with NIDCM. By the end of long-term follow-up (~13 years), 38 (24.5%) subjects had deceased, 5 (3.2%) received LVAD, and 8 (5.2%) underwent heart transplantation. Post-therapy increase of ≥5% LVEF was associated with longer event-free survival in NIDCM (HR:0.31; 95%CI, 0.11,0.86; P = .025), but not ICM (HR:1.14; 95%CI, 0.47,2.72; P = .776). Conversely, reduction in left ventricular end-diastolic volume (LVEDV) was associated with longer event-free survival in ICM (HR:0.16; 95%CI, 0.05, 0.55; P = .008) but not NIDCM (HR:0.35; 95%CI, 0.1,1.2; P = .098). ICM improvers had LVEDV of 225.7 ± 95.9 mL at baseline and 209.0 ± 100.6 mL by year 5 (P = .046). NIDCM improvers had LVEF of 27.2 ± 8.9% at baseline and 36.1 ± 11.6% by year 5 (P = .018).

In this long-term observational cohort analysis, improvement of LVEF and/or reduction in LVEDV was associated with survival benefits among subjects with NIDCM and ICM, respectively. In both etiologies the respective improvements are sustained for up to 5 years, providing evidence that cell-based therapy may be a promising and durable treatment option for patients with heart failure.