Effect of immunomodulation on cardiac remodelling and outcomes in heart failure: a quantitative synthesis of the literature

Aims: Immunomodulation in heart failure (HF) has been studied in several randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with variable effects on cardiac structure, function, and outcomes. We sought to determine the effect of immunomodulation on left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), LV end-diastolic dimension (LVEDD), and all-cause mortality in patients with HF with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) through meta-analyses and trial sequential analyses (TSAs) of RCTs. Methods and results: PubMed, Embase®, Cochrane CENTRAL, and ClinicalTrials.gov were systematically reviewed to identify RCTs that studied the effects of immunomodulation in patients with HFrEF. The primary endpoint in this analysis was change in LVEF. Secondary outcomes were changes in LVEDD and all-cause mortality. TSA was used to quantify the statistical reliability of data in the cumulative meta-analyses. Nineteen RCTs with 1341 HFrEF subjects were eligible for analyses. The aetiology of HF, specific immunomodulation strategy, and treatment duration were variable across trials. Immunomodulation led to a greater improvement in LVEF [mean difference: +5.7% 95% confidence interval (CI): 3.0–8.5%, P < 0.001] and reduction in LVEDD (mean difference: −3.7 mm, 95% CI: −7.0 to −0.4 mm, P = 0.028) than no immunomodulation in meta-analyses and TSAs. We observed a non-significant decrease in all-cause mortality among those on immumomodulation (risk ratio: 0.7, 95% CI: 0.4–1.3, P = 0.234), but the Z-curve for cumulative treatment effect of immunomodulation in the TSA did not cross the boundary of futility. Conclusions: Immunomodulation led to improved cardiac structure and function in patients with HFrEF. While these benefits did not translate into a significant improvement in mortality, our analysis suggests that larger studies of targeted immunomodulation are needed to understand the true benefits.