Efficacy, safety and tolerability of beta-adrenergic blockade with metoprolol CR/XL in elderly patients with heart failure.
OBJECTIVE
To study the efficacy and tolerability of beta-blockade in elderly patients with heart failure in the MERIT-HF study.


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.
University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, San Francisco, CA, USA.
Prakash C
PC
Deedwania
Stephen
S
Gottlieb
Jalal K
JK
Ghali
Finn
F
Waagstein
John C M
JC
Wikstrand
D000319:Adrenergic beta-Antagonists / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001794:Blood Pressure / Q000502:physiology; D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D004311:Double-Blind Method; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000401:mortality / Q000503:physiopathology; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology; D017052:Hospital Mortality; D006801:Humans; D008790:Metoprolol / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D008875:Middle Aged; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D011446:Prospective Studies; D016896:Treatment Outcome
D000319:Adrenergic beta-Antagonists; D008790:Metoprolol