Efficacy, safety and tolerability of beta-adrenergic blockade with metoprolol CR/XL in elderly patients with heart failure

• AIM: To study the efficacy and tolerability of beta-blockade in elderly patients with heart failure in the MERIT-HF study. METHODS AND RESULTS: Cox proportional hazards model was used to calculate hazard ratios (HR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI). Risk reduction was defined as (1-HR). In patients > or = 65 years total mortality was reduced by 37% (95% CI 17% to 52%; p=0.0008), sudden death by 43% (95% CI 17% to 61%; p=0.0032), and death from worsening heart failure by 61% (95% CI 32% to 77%; p=0.0005). Hospitalisations for worsening heart failure was reduced by 36% (p=0.0006). Elderly patients with severe heart failure (NYHA class III/IV with ejection fraction < 0.25; n=425, and patients above 75 years (n=490) showed similar risk reductions. Metoprolol CR/XL was safe and well tolerated both during initiating therapy and during long-term follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: Metoprolol CR/XL was easily instituted, safe and well tolerated in elderly patients with systolic heart failure. The data suggest that these are the patients in whom treatment will have the greatest impact as shown by number of lives saved and number of hospitalisations avoided. The time has come to overcome the barriers that physicians perceive to beta-blocker treatment, and to provide it to the large number of elderly patients with heart failure in need of this therapy.

Keyword

Adrenergic beta-Antagonists/*therapeutic use

Adult

Aged

Aged

80 and over

Blood Pressure/physiology

Dose-Response Relationship

Drug

Double-Blind Method

Heart Failure

Congestive/*drug therapy/mortality/physiopathology

Heart Rate/physiology

Hospital Mortality

Humans

Metoprolol/*therapeutic use

Middle Aged

Proportional Hazards Models

Prospective Studies

Treatment Outcome

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)