Long-acting Beta2 agonists didn’t boost BP in COPD

Neither heart rate nor blood pressure worsened under long-term use of long-acting beta2 agonists olodaterol or formoterol in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), according to a post hoc pooled analysis published in Pulmonary Pharmacology & Therapeutics.

Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease stage 2-4. Patients were randomized to either once-daily olodaterol (5 or 10 mcg), twice-daily formoterol (12 mcg), or placebo. Heart rate and blood pressure were measured before and after dosing at baseline and at four time points during the study: 6 weeks, 12 weeks, 24 weeks, and 48 weeks.

At all time points, the increases seen in the placebo group were greater than seen in the treatment groups; both systolic and diastolic blood pressure showed either slight decreases from or similarities with those seen at baseline, depending on time point. Furthermore, short-term effects were seen around dosing, from before administration to after, although these changes were quantitatively small.

One limitation of the study is that it couldn’t include patients with unstable COPD because of safety reasons; this prevents the findings from being more broadly generalizable.

“These findings, in a large COPD database, speak against the potential negative cardiovascular effects of olodaterol, as well as those of formoterol,” the researchers concluded