Calcium antagonists and mortality in patients with coronary artery disease: A Cohort study of 11,575 patients

Abstract

The current analysis does not support the claim that calcium antagonist therapy in patients with chronic coronary artery disease, whether myocardial infarction survivors or others harbors an increased risk of mortality.

Safety of Calcium Channel Blockers: Perspective on the Controversy

“…karger.ch http:// BioMedNet.com/karger ever, provide any evidence for any adverse effects on mor tality or morbidity for any other agent, with one excep tion: nimodipine (approved only for subarchnoid hemor rhage) increased mortality when given to patients un dergoing major cardiovascular surgery [ 11 ]. In contrast to the allegations of Furberg et al [2], we found no increased risk for mortality between users and nonusers of calcium channel blockers (short-acting nifedipine, diltiazem and verapamil) in a recent cohort study of 1 1,575 patients with chronic coronary artery disease [ 12] after an average follow-up of more than 3 years. With so many calcium channel blockers available today, it is relevant to ask not whether calcium channel blockers can be used in the management of coronary artery disease and hypertension, but rather which calcium channel block ers are preferable.…”

Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease

“…small size, lack of details essential to the interpretation of the data, multiple comparisons of the same data base) that further detract from the conclu sions. Finally, the results of these studies have not been confirmed by other observational or case-control studies sometimes on much larger populations [30][31][32], They have also not been confirmed by recent prospective stud ies [33][34][35], One of them, the Shanghai Trial of Nifedi pine in the Elderly concerns long-term administration of nifedipine in Chinese elderly hypertensive subjects [35]. As shown in figure 2, in this single-blind multicenter study the nifedipine-treated group showed a significantly greater reduction in blood pressure than the placebotreated group.…”

Effects of calcium channel blockers on cellular apoptosis

“…The results of the animal genotoxicity animal studies are consistent with large and powerful epidemiologic studies that have failed to demonstrate a consistent increase in overall risk for cancer among hypertensive patients using CCBs. [37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46]87 A review of the epidemiologic studies related to CCB use is reported in Table 4. It is also important to note that other widely used antihypertensive medications, including diuretics and ␤-blockers, have been previously linked to an increased risk for malignancy.…”