Beta Blocker Therapy Improves Right Ventricular Functions in Patients With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

OBJECTIVE: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a clinical condition with a high mortality and morbidity rate. Cardiac involvement is common in COPD patients. In this disease, beta-blocker (BB) treatment could not be used in sufficient doses most of the time since it is thought that this treatment may aggravate the disease. However, BB is the main drug therapy in patients with atherosclerotic heart disease. In this study, right ventricular (RV) functions were examined using speckle-tracking echocardiography in COPD patients under BB therapy. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Patients, who were followed up with the diagnosis of COPD, were involved in the study. Patients under BB treatment for three months or more were assigned to Group 1 and patients with similar demographic and clinical features to the control group by using propensity score matching (PSM) analysis. Baseline demographic and clinical features of patients were compared, and the effects of BB treatment were analyzed. RESULTS: After PSM analysis, right ventricular free-wall global strain (p <0.001), right ventricular global longitudinal strain (p <0.001), right ventricular right ventricular free-wall global strain rate (p: 0.001), and right ventricular global longitudinal strain rate (p: 0.005) were found to be significantly higher in Group 1. CONCLUSIONS: COPD and atherosclerosis have similar pathways such as inflammation and endothelial dysfunction, and the use of BB in COPD patients may have a positive effect on the improvement of right ventricular functions. This effect can be demonstrated by making use of the deformation analysis rather than conventional parameters.