ESC 2023 – Late-Breaker host, Dr Harriette Van Spall (McMaster University, CA) is joined by Dr Mikhail Kosiborod (Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute, US) to discuss the findings from the STEP HFpEF trial (NCT04788511).

Around half of patients with heart failure have heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), and most patients with HFpEF are overweight or obese. Patients with obesity-related HFpEF have a high burden of debilitating symptoms and physical limitations, leading to a poor quality of life. 

Semaglutide (Novo Nordisk) is a GLP-1 receptor antagonist, which has been shown to substantially produce weight loss in people who are overweight and obese. STEP HFpEF aimed to test the hypothesis that treatment with semaglutide can improve symptoms in patients with HFpEF and obesity. 592 patients were randomized to receive once-weekly semaglutide 2.4mg or placebo for 1 year. 

The trial met both primary endpoints, showing a mean change in body weight of -13.3% with semaglutide, and a change in KCCQ-CCS of 16.6 points from baseline to week 52.

Recorded on-site at ESC Congress 2023, Amsterdam. 

For more content from ESC Congress 2023 and the Late-breaker Discussion series head to the Hot Line & Late-breaking Science Video Collection.

Editors: Mirjam Boros and Jordan Rance

Video Specialists: Dan Brent, Tom Green, Mike Knight, Oliver Miles