Does beta blocker therapy influence the ability of pre-discharge exercise testing to predict coronary anatomy and subsequent complications in post-myocardial infarction patients?
Beta blockers do not need to be stopped before pre-discharge exercise testing in post-MI patients, as they do not impair the test's ability to predict subsequent cardiac events.
The influence of beta blockade on the ability of ST depression, during pre-discharge exercise testing, to predict coronary anatomy and subsequent complications was studied in 300 consecutive post-infarct patients, 125 of whom underwent cardiac catheterisation. At the time of exercise 62 patients were taking a beta blocker. The exercise test had a higher sensitivity in predicting multivessel disease in patients who were not taking beta blockers than in patients who were (95% v 76%). beta Blockade did not, however, influence the ability of the test to identify patients at risk of subsequent cardiac events (sensitivity 84% and 85% respectively). These results suggest that it is not necessary to stop treatment with beta blockers before predischarge exercise testing of patients who have had an acute myocardial infarction.
Murray et al. (Thu,) studied this question.
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