ESC Congress 2025 Hot Line & Late-Breaking Science Collection

  • Published:  08 August 2025
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ESC Congress 2025 Hot Line & Late-Breaking Science Collection

  • Published:  08 August 2025
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    5

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About the episode

ESC Congress 2025 - Digitoxin reduced the risk of all-cause mortality and hospitalisation in patients with worsening heart failure.

Dr Harriette Van Spall (McMaster University, CA) sits down with Prof Udo Bavendiek to explore the DIGIT-HF trial, investigating whether digitoxin can improve outcomes in patients with advanced chronic heart failure and reduced ejection fraction.

This landmark study randomizes 1212 patients with advanced chronic HFrEF across multiple centers, comparing digitoxin therapy (targeting serum concentrations of 8-18 ng/mL) against placebo, both administered alongside guideline-directed standard of care treatment. The trial focuses on patients with NYHA functional class III-IV symptoms and LVEF ≤40%, or those with NYHA class II and LVEF ≤30%.

Findings showed that digitoxin significantly reduced a composite of all-cause death and hospitalisation in patients with worsening heart failure.

Recorded on-site at ESC Congress 2025, Madrid.
Editors: Jordan Rance, Yazmin Sadik.
Video Specialists: Dan Brent, Tom Green, Mike Knight, Oliver Miles, David Ben-Harosh.
Support: This is an independent interview produced by Radcliffe Cardiology.

Overview

Dive into our coverage of ESC Congress 2025 for groundbreaking trial results and discussions with expert faculty.

  • Watch our View From the Thoraxcenter series for practice-focused reviews of the most anticipated trials from interventional experts, Prof Nicolas Van Mieghem and Dr Joost Daemen.
  • Watch our Wrap-Up series led by Dr Mirvat Alasnag summarising the key take-aways from each day of the congress.
  • For clinical trial data from principal investigators, keep up with Dr Harriette Van Spall's Late-Breaker Discussion series.
  • Our concise, accessible Expert Interviews will focus on the current data and it's impact on clinical practice.
  • Don't miss the Highlights series to stay ahead of the curve in each field.
  • In the Journal Discussions series, authors of ECR Journal explore their special focuses in depth.
     

More from this programme

Faculty Biographies

Udo Bavendiek

Udo Bavendiek

Professor of Internal Medicine

View full profile
Harriette Van Spall

Harriette Van Spall

Associate Professor of Medicine, Director of E-Health and Virtual Care

Dr Harriette Van Spall is an internationally-known cardiologist, research methodologist, and senior scientist. Trained at the University of Toronto and Harvard University, she has expertise in clinical trial design and execution. Her investigator-initiated research is well funded and has been recognised formally with the American Heart Association's Nanette Wenger Research Goes Red award and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Mid-Career Lectureship award.

View full profile

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