FRIDAY, Aug. 31 (HealthDay News) -- Use of a novel angiogenic agent, alferminogene tadenovec (Ad5FGF-4), appears to improve measures of refractory angina in women, and could be a promising treatment in the future, according to the results of a study published online Aug. 23 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Timothy D. Henry, M.D., of the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation, and colleagues conducted pooled subgroup analyses from the Angiogenic Gene Therapy (AGENT)-3 and -4 trials. These double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled studies compared low- and high-dose Ad5FGF-4 in 532 patients with chronic angina, and were halted early due to lack of overall benefit.
In women, Ad5FGF-4 treatment was associated with a beneficial effect on several measures of coronary artery disease, including total exercise tolerance time, time to 1 millimeter ST-segment depression, time to angina, and Canadian Cardiovascular Society class in women. In men, the placebo effect was large and did not differ significantly from the treatment effect.
This study is the first to report a differential gender response to cardiac angiogenic therapy. "These data support the hypothesis that there are gender different effects of angiogenic therapy, possibly based on differences in severity and/or location of coronary arterial dysfunction, and/or differences in gender-specific gene expression," the authors conclude.
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