Long-term vagal stimulation for heart failure: Eighteen month results from the NEural Cardiac TherApy foR Heart Failure (NECTAR-HF) trial

Although a favourable long-term safety profile was found, improvements in the efficacy endpoints were not seen with VNS. A new technique for detecting acute heart rate responses to VNS suggests that the recruitment of nerve fibres responsible for heart rate changes were substantially lower in NECTAR-HF than in pre-clinical models.