Article Text
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Q How does pretreatment systolic blood pressure (SBP) affect the efficacy and safety of carvedilol in patients with severe chronic heart failure (HF)?
Clinical impact ratings IM/Ambulatory care ★★★★★★★ Internal medicine ★★★★★★★ Cardiology ★★★★★★☆
METHODS
Design:
randomised controlled trial (Carvedilol Prospective Randomized Cumulative Survival [COPERNICUS] study).
Allocation:
concealed.*
Blinding:
blinded (patients and outcome assessors).*
Follow up period:
mean 10.4 months at early termination of study.
Setting:
334 centres in 21 countries.
Patients:
2289 patients (mean age 63 y, 80% men) with severe chronic HF because of ischaemic or non-ischaemic cardiomyopathy; ⩾2 months of dyspnoea or fatigue at rest or on minimal exertion; left ventricular ejection fraction <25%; and SBP >85 mm Hg. Exclusion criteria: correctable cause of HF; heart transplant; severe primary pulmonary, renal, or hepatic disease; contraindications to β blockers; major cardiac event within 2 months; use of α adrenergic blockers, calcium channel blockers, or class I antiarrhythmic drugs within 4 weeks; heart rate <68 beats/minute, serum creatinine concentration >2.8 mg/dl or an increase …
Request Permissions
If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.