Though myocardial infarction (MI) and COPD are not necessarily connected, there have been questions around the use of beta blockers in patients with COPD following an MI event. A recent study has found that beta-blocker treatment lowers mortality with no additional risk in COPD, regardless of the severity of the COPD.
The paper, “Beta-blockers and Mortality After Myocardial Infarction in Patients With and Without Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease — A Danish Nationwide Cohort Study of 96,567 Patients,” was published in Respiratory Medicine.
Danish researchers sought to investigate the association of beta-blocker use after a first-time MI with all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in patients both with and without COPD. They also examined whether that usage varies by type of MI, severity of COPD and mMRC dyspnea burden.
The researchers used data from patients discharged for MI from 2003-2015, who were part of the Danish National Prescription Registry and other individual level registers.
Of the more than 96,000 patients surviving MI, 10,884 (11.3%) also had COPD. These patients were often older and had a non-ST-elevation MI, or NSTEMI (an attack that occurs because of a partial blockage in a coronary artery), compared to the non-COPD patients.
The presence of COPD was associated with higher all-cause mortality in both STEMI and NSTEMI patients. For COPD patients, the use of a beta blocker had a lower mortality regardless of the type of MI. Beta blockers were also associated with a lower mortality among high-risk patients with severe COPD and frequent exacerbations.
“Beta blocker use was associated with a lower risk of mortality following MI independently of [the] type of MI, presence or absence of COPD and COPD severity,” the researchers wrote. “This supports [the idea] that beta-blocker treatment carries no increased mortality risk in COPD, regardless of COPD severity and dyspnea score.”
