Early initiation of oral beta-blocker improves long-term survival in patients with acute myocardial infarction who underwent primary percutaneous coronary intervention.

Background: The optimal timing for the initiation of oral beta-blockers after acute myocardial infarction (MI) remains unclear within the context of current primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) practice.
Methods: This retrospective cohort study included 412 consecutive patients admitted with a diagnosis of acute MI between January 2007 and August 2016 who underwent successful primary PCI and were given oral carvedilol during hospitalization. Early and late carvedilol groups were based on initiation within the first 24 h or after. Propensity score matching (1:1) incorporating 21 baseline characteristics yielded 47 matched pairs. Timing of carvedilol initiation was evaluated in relation to patient outcomes including time to all-cause mortality, using Kaplan-Meier estimates on the matched cohort and additional confirmation in multivariable regression analysis among the entire cohort.
Results: Median follow-up period was 828 days. All-cause death occurred in 14 patients (4.7%) and 18 patients (15.8%) of the early and late carvedilol groups. After propensity score matching, initiation of oral carvedilol within the first 24 h was associated with lower all-cause mortality (6.4% vs. 25.5%, hazard ratio 0.28, 95% confidence interval 0.06 - 0.89, p = 0.036), as well as lower in-hospital mortality (0 vs. 14.9%, p = 0.018).
Conclusions: These results provide evidence that initiation of oral carvedilol within the first 24 h reduces the risk of long-term mortality, in acute MI patients who underwent primary PCI, supporting current guidelines recommendation.
(© 2024. The Author(s).)