OBJECTIVES Inappropriate shocks are unpleasant and painful. We hypothesise that remote monitoring and careful attention to known and incident atrial fibrillation (AF) can reduce inappropriate shocks to a very low level in clinical praxis. METHODS Altogether 259 patients with implantable cardioverter defibrillator implanted for secondary (S, n=113) and primary (P, n=146) prevention were follow...

Nebivolol is a highly selective β1-adrenergic receptor antagonist with a pharmacologic profile that differs from those of other drugs in its class. In addition to cardioselectivity mediated via β1 receptor blockade, nebivolol induces nitric oxide-mediated vasodilation by stimulating endothelial nitric oxide synthase via β3 agonism. This vasodilatory mechanism is distinct from those of other vas...

The organic anion transporting polypeptide 1A2 (OATP1A2), a membrane drug transporter expressed on important organs (such as the brain, kidney, and intestine) may be a key element in the disposition of drugs. Previous studies demonstrated that it could transport a broad spectrum of substrates, including endogenous molecules and clinically relevant drugs, such as several β-blockers and 3-hydroxy...

The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of renin-angiotensin system (RAS) inhibitors vs other antihypertensive agents on cardiovascular outcomes in hypertensive black patients. The authors performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies that compared the effects of angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) with calcium channel ...

CONTEXT Hypertension affects one third of the U.S. adult population. Although cost-effectiveness analyses of antihypertensive medicines have been published, a comprehensive systematic review across medicine classes is not available. EVIDENCE ACQUISITION PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and Health Technology Assessment were searched to identify original cost-effectiveness analyses published f...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the use of β-blockers and to monitor heart rate in Mexican patients with coronary artery disease. METHODS CLARIFY is an outpatients registry with stable CAD. A total of 33,283 patients from 45 countries were enrolled between November 2009 and July 2010 from which 1342 were Mexican patients. RESULTS The mean HR pulse was 70 bpm (beats per minute). Patients in Mexico wer...

Beta-blockers are a multiform group of drugs with multiple applications in the treatment of patients with cardiovascular disease. Their adverse actions are multiple and relate mainly to the β-adrenergic receptor blockade.They are used to treat all forms of coronary disease, but especially in acute myocardial infarction and acute coronary syndromes. The administration to patients with coronary a...

PURPOSE β-Blockers (bisoprolol, carvedilol, and metoprolol) are the cornerstone of heart failure (HF) management. The incidence rate of β-blocker initiation and discontinuation and their associated factors among seniors with a first HF diagnosis were assessed. METHODS A population-based inception cohort study that included all individuals aged ≥65 years with a first HF diagnosis in Quebec was...

Cardiotoxic effects account for a large proportion of the mortality arising from drug overdose, and many drugs can cause cardiovascular manifestations, which include effects on heart rate and blood pressure, electrocardiographic (ECG) abnormalities and arrhythmias (Table 1). This article discusses the cardiovascular management of toxicity with angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and ...

BACKGROUND For many indications, the negative chronotropic effect of β-blockers is important to their efficacy, yet the heart rate (HR) response to β-blockers varies. Herein, we sought to use a genome-wide association approach to identify novel single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with HR response to β-blockers. METHODS AND RESULTS We first performed 4 genome-wide association ana...