01-04-2007 | Adis Drug Profile
Sitaxentan
In Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension
Published in: Drugs | Issue 5/2007
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▴ Sitaxentan is a highly selective endothelin (ET)A receptor antagonist, with an ≈6500 higher affinity for ETA than ETB receptors. In pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), elevated ET-1 levels are strongly correlated with disease severity and prognosis.
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▴ Sitaxentan 100mg once daily was efficacious in the management of moderate to severe PAH in the pivotal, 12–18 week, large (n ≥ 98), well designed, placebo-controlled STRIDE-1, -2 and -4 trials.
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▴ In the STRIDE-1 and -2 trials (the majority of patients had New York Heart Association [NYHA]/WHO functional class III PAH), sitaxentan-treated patients experienced significantly greater improvements from baseline in distance walked over 6 minutes (6MWD; primary endpoint in STRIDE-2) and in NYHA/WHO functional class than placebo recipients.
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▴ In STRIDE-4, although there was no between-group difference in terms of improvements in 6MWD in the primary analysis of patients across all WHO functional classes (61% were functional class II) [primary endpoint], improvements in 6MWD significantly favoured sitaxentan versus placebo-treated patients in a post hoc subgroup analysis of those with WHO functional class III or IV disease.
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▴ The beneficial effects of sitaxentan therapy on exercise capacity and NYHA/WHO functional class were maintained after up to 2 years’ treatment.
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▴ Treatment with sitaxentan for up to 2 years was generally well tolerated in clinical trials.