Trial reportJournal of cardiac failure2022
Polypharmacy in Palliative Care for Advanced Heart Failure: The PAL-HF Experience.
Trial report in Journal of cardiac failure, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 8 citations in OpenAlex.
- Outcomes of deprescribing for people with life-limiting conditions: A systematic review.Palliative medicine · 2026Pooled it
- Polypharmacy in Older Adults: A Narrative Review of Clinical Risks, Deprescribing Strategies, and Interdisciplinary Management.Geriatrics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Metabolic-Electrophysiological Coupling in Heart Failure: from Bidirectional Decoupling to Therapeutic Recoupling.Current heart failure reports · 2025Review
- How to handle polypharmacy in heart failure. A clinical consensus statement of the Heart Failure Association of the ESC.European journal of heart failure · 2025Review
- Definition of Polypharmacy in Heart Failure: A Scoping Review of the Literature.Cardiology research · 2024Article
- Palliative Care: A Primary Care Pharmacist Perspective.Pharmacy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
13 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundPalliative care (PC) in advanced heart failure (HF) aims to improve symptoms and quality of life (QOL), in part through medication management. The impact of PC on polypharmacy (>5 medications) remains unknown. METHODS AND
resultsWe explored patterns of polypharmacy in the Palliative Care in HF (PAL-HF) randomized controlled trial of standard care vs interdisciplinary PC in advanced HF (N = 150). We describe differences in medication counts between arms at 2, 6, 12, and 24 weeks for HF (12 classes) and PC (6 classes) medications. General linear mixed models were used to evaluate associations between treatment arm and polypharmacy over time. The median age of the patients was 72 years (interquartile range 62-80 years), 47% were female, and 41% were Black. Overall, 48% had ischemic etiology, and 55% had an ejection fraction of 40% or less. Polypharmacy was present at baseline in 100% of patients. HF and PC medication counts increased in both arms, with no significant differences in counts by drug class at any time point between arms.
conclusionsIn a trial of patients with advanced HF considered eligible for PC, polypharmacy was universal at baseline and increased during follow-up with no effect of the palliative intervention on medication counts relative to standard care.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.