Copyright © 2004 by the European Society of Cardiology.
Editorial
ß-blockers, myocardial ischaemia and collateral circulation
Department of Cardiac Medicine, National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College Faculty of Medicine, London, UK
* Corresponding author: Dr M. Sato, Imperial College London, London, UK
E-mail address: m.sato@imperial.ac.uk
| The first 10% of the full text of this article appears below. |
This editorial refers to "Heart rate reduction during exercise-induced myocardial ischemia and stunning" by X. Monnet et al. on page 579, and "Coronary collateral perfusion in patients with coronary artery disease: effect of metoprolol" by M. Billinger et al. on page 565.1
ß-blockers are established as standard first-line therapy for both stable and unstable angina pectoris having been introduced to the clinical setting in the mid-1960s. This class of drug is effective in alleviating the symptoms of angina but has never been shown to impact on mortality in patients with chronic stable angina. Several large clinical trials have shown ß-blockers to reduce mortality when used in patients after myocardial infarction and more recently in heart failure.13 The recently published COMET trial demonstrated mortality benefit of carvedilol (a nonselective ß-blocker and
-antagonist) compared to metoprolol tartrate (a selective ß1-blocker) in heart failure.4 Thus over recent years the
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Related articles in EHJ:
- Coronary collateral perfusion in patients with coronary artery disease: effect of metoprolol
- Michael Billinger, Lorenz Raeber, Christian Seiler, Stephan Windecker, Bernhard Meier, and Otto M. Hess
EHJ 2004 25: 565-570.[Abstract] [FREE Full Text] - Heart rate reduction during exercise-induced myocardial ischaemia and stunning
- Xavier Monnet, Patrice Colin, Bijan Ghaleh, Luc Hittinger, Jean-François Giudicelli, and Alain Berdeaux
EHJ 2004 25: 579-586.[Abstract] [FREE Full Text]