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. 2022 May;24(5):855-860.
doi: 10.1002/ejhf.2490. Epub 2022 Mar 31.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on prescription of sacubitril/valsartan in Italy

Giuseppe M C Rosano  1 , Simone Celant  2 , Pier Paolo Olimpieri  2 , Antonietta Colatrella  2 , Graziano Onder  3 , Andrea Di Lenarda  4 , Giuseppe Ambrosio  5 , Gianpaolo Reboldi  6 , Gian Franco Gensini  7 , Furio Colivicchi  8 , Pierluigi Russo  2
Affiliations

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on prescription of sacubitril/valsartan in Italy

Giuseppe M C Rosano et al. Eur J Heart Fail. 2022 May.

Erratum in

Abstract

Aims: The present study sought to examine the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown measures on the prescription of sacubitril/valsartan in patients with heart failure (HF) in Italy.

Methods and results: Data from Italian Medicines Agency (AIFA) monitoring registries were analysed. The sacubitril/valsartan monitoring registry is based on 6-month prescriptions. A monthly aggregation on new activations throughout the observational period was computed. From March to December 2020, the initiation of new HF patients on sacubitril/valsartan decreased by nearly 40% with prescriptions dropping to values similar to 2018 when the registry was still operated off-line. A slight increase in prescriptions was observed after the lockdown measures were lifted, but prescriptions remained constantly below the pre-lockdown period.

Conclusion: A marked and worrisome decline during the COVID-19 pandemic in the activation of a life-saving treatment such as sacubitril/valsartan was observed. This decline was clearly linked to the lockdown measures instated to counteract the COVID-19 pandemic. Upcoming studies should analyse the occurrence of new cases of HF as well as the severity of patients admitted to hospitals and their mortality compared to pre-pandemic levels.

Keywords: COVID-19; Heart failure; Registry; Sacubitril/valsartan.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Observed series and model fitted values of new prescriptions of sacubitril/valsartan between March 2017 and February 2020.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Analysis of residual distribution of the S‐ARIMA model; S‐ARIMA was estimated using the following parameters: (p = 0, I = 0, q = 3) for the main model and (p = 1, I = 0, q = 0) for the seasonal component, where p indicates the order of the AR component, q indicates the order of the MA component, and I indicates the order of integration.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Comparison between the observed and forecasted sacubitril/valsartan new prescriptions between March and December 2020.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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