Tag Archives: beta blocker

Introduction To date, five pharmacological approaches have been demonstrated to significantly reduce the risk of mortality and prevent hospitalisation for worsening heart failure (HF) in patients with HF with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF): the combination of a neprilysin inhibitor and an angiotensin-receptor blocker (i.e. sacubitril/valsartan), a beta blocker, a mineralocorticoid-receptor antagonist (MRA) and a sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitor. Hereafter, these five agents, which can be prescribed as four pills, will be referred to as the ‘four foundational therapies for HFrEF’.1-11 The combination of these four ther

Optimised beta blocker therapy in heart failure: is there space for additional heart rate control? Dear Sirs, We undertook a similar audit to Russell et al.1 within the heart failure service of a district general hospital auditing the case notes of 96 patients attending over three months. Applying the SHIFT inclusion and exclusion criteria, we identified only seven patients (6.7%) eligible for ivabradine. Using the SHIFT dataset the number needed to treat to prevent a single hospitalisation due to heart failure was 22.2 Extrapolating our data, over 12 months, we would expect to identify approximately 28 suitable patients. Treating 28 patients

There is incontrovertible, large-scale, randomised-controlled evidence for morbidity and mortality benefit of beta-blockers in heart failure (trials include MERIT-HF, COPERNICUS, CIBIS II),1-3 she said, but the evidence for adverse effects in lung disease is based on animal studies, case reports and small scale human studies.4 Beta blockade in COPD, however, is fully endorsed by The European Society of Cardiology (ESC), National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) and Cochrane reviews.5-7 Dr Hardman’s presentation highlighted for trainees an important area where significant improvements can be achieved. Cardiac and respiratory func

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