 A new meta-analysis suggests intermittent administration of levosemendon may reduce incidences of re-hospitalization for patients with advanced heart failure. When heart failure progresses to an advanced stage, conventional therapies become less successful. For many patients, when this occurs, quality of life may become just as important as duration of life. And one of the largest negative influences on this aspect of care is repeated hospitalization. With this in mind, an international team of researchers set out to investigate whether a proven heart failure medication could be used to reduce the frequency of hospital admissions for patients in the advanced stages of the disease. Sifting through previously published studies on the effects of levosemendon, a calcium sensitizer often used to treat congestive heart failure, the team constructed a data set including 319 patients from six clinical trials. Statistical analyses showed a significant reduction in the number of re-hospitalizations at three months. In fact, although differences in study design, drug dosage and frequency of treatment were found between studies, each of the previous clinical trials examined showed beneficial effects of the medication. Due to the absence of new drug therapies for acute and advanced heart failure, these patients, in general, continue to have a high rate of hospitalizations. This meta-analysis suggests levosemendon has the potential to change that, and as a result, increase quality of life for patients in the advanced stages of the disease. These findings are consistent with the previous meta-analysis, showing reduction of mortality by levosemendon under similar conditions. This study highlights the need for further research, specifically large randomized controlled medical trials to further investigate this novel use of a commonly used medication and confirm these findings.