Clinical Trials Update from the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Vienna, 2007: PROSPECT, EVEREST, ARISE, ALOFT, FINESSE, Prague-8, CARESS in MI and ACUITY A. Recio-Mayoral & J.-C. Kaski & J. J. V. McMurray & J. Horowitz & D. J. van Veldhuisen & W. J. Remme Published online: 9 November 2007 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2007 Abstract The Clinical Trials described in this article were presented at the Hotline and Clinical Trial Update Sessions of the European Society of Cardiology Congress held in September 2007 in Vienna, Austria. The sessions chosen for this article represent the scope of interest of Cardiovascular Drugs and Therapy. The presentations should be considered preliminary, as further analyses could alter the final publication of the results of these studies. PROSPECT evaluated echocardiographic criteria for optimal selection of patients with moderate to severe heart failure who may benefit from cardiac resynchronisa- tion therapy, however concluded that no single echocar- diographic measure can be recommended. EVEREST found that tolvaptan, a vasopressin V 2 antagonist, resulted in early weight reduction and improvement of dyspnoea in patients with acute heart failure, but lacked long term improvement. In ARISE, the anti-oxidant succinobucal did not affect the primary outcome in high risk cardiovas- cular patients, but improved the combination of cardio- vascular death, myocardial infarction and stroke, and diabetic control in diabetics. ALOFT showed that the addition of the renin inhibitor aliskiren to an ACE inhibitor or ARB and a beta-blocker leads to favourable effects on neurohormonal actions in heart failure. FI- NESSE markedly improved coronary patency before PCI with half-dose reteplase/abciximab in STEMI patients, however without significantly improving short-term out- come. The Prague-8 Study evaluated whether routine clopidogrel administered >6 h pre-angiography would be a safe way to achieve therapeutic drug levels in case a follow-up intervention would be considered immediately, but appeared not justified because of bleeding complica- tions. CARESS in MI showed that high risk patients with evolving STEMI who undergo thrombolytic therapy should undergo PCI early after the thrombolysis. Finally, the ACUITY trial found that in moderate or high risk Non ST elevation ACS patients triaged to PCI, coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery, or medical management, bivalirudin, with or without associated GPIIb/IIIa inhibitor therapy, resulted in a marked reduction of bleeding at 30 days whilst preserving the ischemic and mortality benefit at 1 year follow up. Key words European Society of Cardiology . randomised controlled trials . PROSPECT . EVEREST . ARISE . ALOFT . FINESSE . Prague-8 . CARESS in MI . ACUITY Cardiovasc Drugs Ther (2007) 21:459–465 DOI 10.1007/s10557-007-6069-4 A. Recio-Mayoral : J.-C. Kaski University of London, London, UK J. J. V. McMurray University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK J. Horowitz University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia D. J. van Veldhuisen University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands W. J. Remme (*) Sticares Cardiovascular Research Institute, Rhoon, The Netherlands e-mail: w.j.remme@sticares.org