Heart drug targets black patients

Heart failure: "Higher risk" for black people

Black heart patients are being recruited to test a new drug which the makers say can treat their condition more effectively than drugs currently on the market.

The drug, known as BiDil, is being produced by an American pharmaceutical company, NitroMed, which will carry out tests on 600 black men and women who have suffered moderate to severe heart failure.

The trials, said to be the first of their kind conducted exclusively among black men and women, were announced at a recent conference of the Association of Black Cardiologists by the doctor leading the study, Anne Taylor.

Dr Taylor said research had consistently shown black people were disproportionately affected by heart disease.

"Statistically African Americans are twice as likely to suffer from heart failure and twice as likely to die from heart failure as compared to white patients," she said.

Research indicates race is a factor in heart failure

"In addition, scientific studies have suggested that black patients with heart failure are under-served by currently available therapeutics."

The drug has already been tested on a cross-section of heart patients when it was found to be particularly effective for black people.

BiDil's makers say one of the reasons for the high rate of heart failure in black people may be lower than usual levels of nitric oxide.

They say BiDil is more effective for those patients because it restores depleted nitric oxide levels.

Trial data will be evaluated every three months to assess heart function and quality of life, and all patients will be monitored for at least six months.

The US Food and Drug Administration has indicated it would be willing to license BiDil as a specialist heart treatment for black people provided the new tests backed earlier findings it was more effective for them than other races.