Vericiguat, a soluble guanylate cyclase stimulator, improves outcomes in patients with WHF. At the 2025 European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Congress, the ROVER Japan study presented real-world data on vericiguat use in routine Japanese clinical practice.

This retrospective cohort study used a hospital administrative database to include 4,936 adults who started vericiguat between September 2021 and July 2024. The mean age was 75.4 years, 67.4% were men, and 29.6% received quadruple HF therapy. At treatment initiation, 39.6% had not experienced a recent WHF event.

In the overall cohort, the one-year cumulative incidence of the composite of cardiovascular death or first HF hospitalization was 29.8%. The incidences of cardiovascular death and first HF hospitalization were 7.0% and 28.9%, respectively. Patients without recent WHF had lower cumulative incidences of cardiovascular death (3.0% vs. 10.2%) and first HF hospitalization (15.9% vs. 39.0%) compared with those who had recent events.

Despite being older and having more comorbidities than participants in the VICTORIA trial, real-world outcomes were largely consistent, underscoring the prognostic impact of recent WHF events in patients treated with vericiguat in everyday clinical practice.