Perioperative Beta‐blockers for Preventing Surgery‐related Mortality and Morbidity in Adults Undergoing Cardiac Surgery

Background

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have yielded conflicting results regarding the ability of beta‐blockers to influence perioperative cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Thus routine prescription of these drugs in unselected patients remains a controversial issue. A previous version of this review assessing the effectiveness of perioperative beta‐blockers in cardiac and non‐cardiac surgery was last published in 2018. The previous review has now been split into two reviews according to type of surgery. This is an update and assesses the evidence in cardiac surgery only.

Objectives

To assess the effectiveness of perioperatively administered beta‐blockers for the prevention of surgery‐related mortality and morbidity in adults undergoing cardiac surgery.

Search methods

We searched CENTRAL, MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, Biosis Previews and Conference Proceedings Citation Index‐Science on 28 June 2019. We searched clinical trials registers and grey literature, and conducted backward‐ and forward‐citation searching of relevant articles.

Selection criteria

We included RCTs and quasi‐randomized studies comparing beta‐blockers with a control (placebo or standard care) administered during the perioperative period to adults undergoing cardiac surgery. We excluded studies in which all participants in the standard care control group were given a pharmacological agent that was not given to participants in the intervention group, studies in which all participants in the control group were given a beta‐blocker, and studies in which beta‐blockers were given with an additional agent (e.g. magnesium). We excluded studies that did not measure or report review outcomes.

Data collection and analysis

Two review authors independently assessed studies for inclusion, extracted data, and assessed risks of bias. We assessed the certainty of evidence with GRADE.

Main results

We included 63 studies with 7768 participants; six studies were quasi‐randomized and the remaining were RCTs. All participants were undergoing cardiac surgery, and in most studies, at least some of the participants were previously taking beta‐blockers. Types of beta‐blockers were: propranolol, metoprolol, sotalol, esmolol, landiolol, acebutolol, timolol, carvedilol, nadolol, and atenolol. In twelve studies, beta‐blockers were titrated according to heart rate or blood pressure. Duration of administration varied between studies, as did the time at which drugs were administered; in nine studies this was before surgery, in 20 studies during surgery, and in the remaining studies beta‐blockers were started postoperatively. Overall, we found that most studies did not report sufficient details for us to adequately assess risk of bias. In particular, few studies reported methods used to randomize participants to groups. In some studies, participants in the control group were given beta‐blockers as rescue therapy during the study period, and all studies in which the control was standard care were at high risk of performance bias because of the open‐label study design. No studies were prospectively registered with clinical trials registers, which limited the assessment of reporting bias. We judged 68% studies to be at high risk of bias in at least one domain.

Study authors reported few deaths (7 per 1000 in both the intervention and control groups), and we found low‐certainty evidence that beta‐blockers may make little or no difference to all‐cause mortality at 30 days (risk ratio (RR) 0.95, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.47 to 1.90; 29 studies, 4099 participants). For myocardial infarctions, we found no evidence of a difference in events (RR 1.05, 95% CI 0.72 to 1.52; 25 studies, 3946 participants; low‐certainty evidence). Few study authors reported cerebrovascular events, and the evidence was uncertain (RR 1.37, 95% CI 0.51 to 3.67; 5 studies, 1471 participants; very low‐certainty evidence). Based on a control risk of 54 per 1000, we found low‐certainty evidence that beta‐blockers may reduce episodes of ventricular arrhythmias by 32 episodes per 1000 (RR 0.40, 95% CI 0.25 to 0.63; 12 studies, 2296 participants). For atrial fibrillation or flutter, there may be 163 fewer incidences with beta‐blockers, based on a control risk of 327 incidences per 1000 (RR 0.50, 95% CI 0.42 to 0.59; 40 studies, 5650 participants; low‐certainty evidence). However, the evidence for bradycardia and hypotension was less certain. We found that beta‐blockers may make little or no difference to bradycardia (RR 1.63, 95% CI 0.92 to 2.91; 12 studies, 1640 participants; low‐certainty evidence), or hypotension (RR 1.84, 95% CI 0.89 to 3.80; 10 studies, 1538 participants; low‐certainty evidence).

We used GRADE to downgrade the certainty of evidence. Owing to studies at high risk of bias in at least one domain, we downgraded each outcome for study limitations. Based on effect size calculations in the previous review, we found an insufficient number of participants in all outcomes (except atrial fibrillation) and, for some outcomes, we noted a wide confidence interval; therefore, we also downgraded outcomes owing to imprecision. The evidence for atrial fibrillation and length of hospital stay had a moderate level of statistical heterogeneity which we could not explain, and we, therefore, downgraded these outcomes for inconsistency.

Authors’ conclusions

We found no evidence of a difference in early all‐cause mortality, myocardial infarction, cerebrovascular events, hypotension and bradycardia. However, there may be a reduction in atrial fibrillation and ventricular arrhythmias when beta‐blockers are used. A larger sample size is likely to increase the certainty of this evidence. Four studies awaiting classification may alter the conclusions of this review.