LOS ANGELES, Dec. 17 (Xinhua) -- Lives of patients suffering from heart failure may be saved by a new approach to using medication which has been devised by researchers at the University of Illinois in Chicago (UIC).

    The researchers have developed a formula that will help physicians prescribe the proper amount of the powerful heart drug digoxin for congestive heart failure, according to a study recently published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

    The new technique can help an injured or weakened heart to work efficiently, strengthens the force of the heart muscle's contraction and helps restore a normal, steady heart rhythm, the study said.

    Digoxin can be difficult to dose, and there is a small margin between a beneficial and a deadly level of the drug, said Jerry Bauman, interim dean of the UIC College of Pharmacy and the leading researcher of the study.

    "The therapeutic range for digoxin in heart failure has recently changed to become lower and narrower, and the new range is associated with improved mortality," Bauman said.

    "However, dosing methods have not been modified to reflect this change. In the study, we sought to develop a new method to determine the initial dose of digoxin in patients with heart failure," he said.

    Medical records of adult patients who had a steady state of digoxin concentration in their bloodstream were reviewed for six months. An equation was derived using the patients' blood digoxin level, digoxin dose, kidney function, and ideal body weight.

    The new formula was then compared to two older methods frequently used to estimate the initial dose of digoxin, and it was found to be superior, the study said.

    Using the new method, investigators constructed a simple nomogram to help clinicians quickly choose the right dose.

    "Because the new therapeutic window of digoxin is associated with improved outcomes, more intensive dosage refinement should be considered," Bauman said. "To this end, we offer new dosing recommendations and a nomogram for determining the initial dose of digoxin in patients with heart failure.

    "This is a new way to dose an old drug," Bauman said.