Long term beta blocker use to curb further heart attack risk questioned in recent study

The accepted clinical practice of using beta blockers over the long term to curb the risk of further heart attacks or death doesn’t seem to be warranted in patients who don’t have heart failure, suggests a large study published in the journal Heart.

The researchers found no difference in these risks between patients taking beta blockers more than a year after their heart attack and those who weren’t on these drugs.

To strengthen the evidence base, the researchers drew on 43,618 adults who had had a heart attack between 2005 and 2016 that required hospital treatment, and whose details had been entered into the national Swedish register for coronary heart disease.

The researchers wanted to find out if there were any differences between the two groups in terms of deaths from any cause and rates of further heart attacks, revascularisation-a procedure to restore blood flow to parts of the heart-or hospital admission for heart failure.

The real time data showed that long term treatment with beta blockers wasn’t associated with improved cardiovascular outcomes during an average monitoring period of 4.5 years.

Some 19% of those on beta blockers, and 22% of those who weren’t, died from any cause, or had another heart attack, or required unscheduled revascularisation, or were admitted to hospital for heart failure.

Reference:

Association of beta-blockers beyond 1 year after myocardial infarction and cardiovascular outcomes,Heart, DOI 10.1136/heartjnl-2022-322115