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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- A treatment previously thought to be dangerous to patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) may actually be life-saving, new research shows.
Recent guidelines from the American Heart Association recommend the use of beta-blockers -- drugs used to slow down the heart rate -- before non-cardiac surgery for patients who have heart disease or are at high risk for it; but COPD patients often dont receive these medications because of concerns they will worsen airway obstruction.
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Recent findings shed new light on these concerns. In the first study to look at the effects of beta-blockers on surgical COPD patients, researchers found the drugs significantly reduced rates of death among patients who received them. They came to the conclusion after evaluating the mortality outcomes of more than 3,000 patients who underwent vascular surgery between 1990 and 2006. More specifically, they compared the effects of a low dose of beta-blockers with a higher, or intensified, dose.
We found that an intensified dosing regimen appeared to be superior to low-dose therapy in terms of its impact on 30-day mortality, lead study author Don Poldermans, M.D., Ph.D., of the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, was quoted as saying. We [demonstrated] among a large group of well-characterized patients with COPD that beta-blockers were safe and beneficial in prolonging survival after major vascular surgery.
Results also show in the 30 days following surgery, COPD patients who didnt receive beta-blockers were twice as likely to die as those who did.
Experts say the findings need to be looked at in context with the recent Perioperative Ischemic Evaluation (POISE) study, which showed higher mortality among patients with and without COPD who were treated with beta-blockers before surgery.
SOURCE: American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 2008;178:695-700
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