Vericiguat combined with standard therapy improves cardiac function, inflammatory markers, and exercise tolerance in patients with essential hypertension and chronic heart failure

Objective: Hypertension combined with chronic heart failure is associated with high morbidity and mortality.As a novel soluble guanylate cyclase stimulator, vericiguat has demonstrated therapeutic benefits in the treatment of heart failure.Methods: A retrospective study was conducted on 120 patients with essential hypertension complicated by chronic heart failure, who were divided into a combination therapy group (63 cases) and a conventional therapy group (57 cases).Myocardial injury markers, including N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP), soluble suppression of tumorigenicity 2 (sST2), and cardiac troponin I (cTnI); inflammatory and prognostic biomarkers, including C-reactive protein (CRP), galectin-3 (Gal-3), and fatty acid-binding protein 4 (FABP4); cardiac function parameters, including left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), left ventricular peak ejection rate (LVPER), and left ventricular end-diastolic dimension (LVDd); and cardiopulmonary exercise parameters, including anaerobic threshold oxygen uptake (VO 2 AT), maximal oxygen uptake (VO 2 max), and the 6-minute walk distance (6MWD), were measured.In addition, blood pressure, New York Heart Association (NYHA) functional class, and adverse reactions were recorded, and correlation analyses among biomarkers and clinical parameters were performed.Results: After treatment, the combination therapy group had significantly lower levels of myocardial injury and inflammatory biomarkers (P < 0.05), together with improved cardiac function, exercise tolerance, blood pressure, and NYHA functional class.The 6MWD was markedly longer in the combination therapy group (P < 0.001).No significant intergroup difference was observed in the incidence of adverse reactions (P > 0.05).CRP was positively correlated with NT-proBNP and negatively correlated with LVEF and 6MWD (P < 0.001).Conclusion: Vericiguat combined with standard therapy alleviates myocardial injury and inflammation and improves cardiac function, exercise tolerance, blood pressure control, and clinical symptoms in patients with hypertension complicated by chronic heart failure, with a favorable safety profile.Further multicenter studies are required to validate its broader clinical applicability.