You are here

  • Home
  • Archive
  • Volume 21, Issue 3
  • Preoperative treatment with β-blockers is associated with elevated postoperative mortality and cardiac morbidity in patients with uncomplicated hypertension undergoing non-cardiac surgery

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Aetiology/Harm
Cohort study
Preoperative treatment with β-blockers is associated with elevated postoperative mortality and cardiac morbidity in patients with uncomplicated hypertension undergoing non-cardiac surgery
  1. Duminda N Wijeysundera1,2,3
  1. 1Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  2. 2Department of Anesthesia, Toronto General Hospital and University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  3. 3Institute of Health Policy Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  1. Correspondence to : Dr Duminda N Wijeysundera, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, St. Michael's Hospital, 30 Bond Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5B 1W8; d.wijeysundera{at}utoronto.ca

http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/ebmed-2016-110395

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    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.

    Commentary on: Jørgensen ME, Hlatky MA, Køber L, et al. β-Blocker-associated risks in patients with uncomplicated hypertension undergoing noncardiac surgery. JAMA Intern Med 2015;175:1923–31.OpenUrlPubMed

    Context

    The role of β-blockers in preventing cardiovascular complications of non-cardiac surgery is controversial. Early enthusiasm was dampened by accumulating trial data and concerns about the scientific validity of several trials. When studies with uncertain validity are excluded, meta-analyses of randomised trials show that perioperative β-blockers (started within 1 day before surgery) prevent postoperative myocardial infarction (MI), but increase the risks of stroke and death.1 This Danish nationwide cohort study evaluated the association of long-term preoperative β-blocker treatment with mortality and cardiac morbidity after non-cardiac surgery in patients with uncomplicated hypertension.

    Methods

    Population-based healthcare databases were used to conduct …

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Contributors DNW prepared the first draft of this paper, revised it for important intellectual content, and is the guarantor.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.