Age is not a significant risk factor for failed trial of beta-blocker therapy in older patients with chronic heart failure

Objectives: to evaluate how well older heart failure patients tolerate beta-blockers in everyday clinical practice. Design: retrospective casenote analysis. Setting: specialist heart failure clinic in a large teaching hospital. Participants: 226 patients with a clinical diagnosis of heart failure and evidence of left ventricular systolic dysfunction. Measurements: data on age, sex, comorbid illness, other medications, duration of beta-blocker therapy, side-effects and reasons for discontinuation. Results: patients aged 75 years and over had a higher level of comorbid disease and worse New York Heart Association status. Despite this, 60.4% of those aged 75 or over had been tried on a beta-blocker (versus 69% of those aged