Long-term Survival of Japanese Patients with Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension Treated with Beraprost Sodium, an Oral Prostacyclin Analogue

Abstract

Objective Beraprost was developed as the first oral prostacyclin analog to treat patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). Although this drug demonstrates improvements in the patient's exercise capacity and symptoms, it carries a weak recommendation in the PAH evidence-based treatment algorithm due to a lack of durability of effects. However, this therapy remains a major treatment method in Japan due to its availability and inexpensive cost. The purpose of this study was to elucidate whether this drug exhibits durable effects on sustained overall survival. Methods A comparison of survival benefits was completed among patients undergoing treatment with beraprost (n=35) or conventional therapy (n=44). In addition, the estimated survival calculated using the equation developed by the National Institutes of Health Registry was used for the analysis. Results Although no significant differences were observed between the two groups using the Kaplan-Meier survival curve, a statistical difference was observed between the patients receiving high-dose beraprost therapy (>120 μg) and those receiving conventional therapy (5-and 10-year survival: 71.1% and 49.4% vs. 37.7% and 21.2%, respectively; p=0.0466). Moreover, the cumulative survival rates in the patients receiving beraprost were slightly better than the estimated survival rates. In the PAH patients with connective tissue diseases, a tendency towards better survival outcomes was observed in the group treated with beraprost. Conclusion This study suggests the survival benefits of high-dose beraprost therapy for patients with PAH. The retrospective nature of this study, however, makes it difficult to conclude definitively that beraprost exerts significant beneficial effects on survival.

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“…Beraprost was approved in Japan as an oral treatment for PAH in 1999 and is widely used there although survival benefits have been hard to demonstrate [11,12]. Although United therapeutics has evaluated various formulations of beraprost since 2000, it has yet to seek US approval for any such formulation.…”