Effectiveness and safety assessment of calcium channel blockers compared to beta blockers in patients with angina: An observational study.

Abstract

Beta blockers (BB) and calcium channel blockers (CCB) are highly effective to suppress angina attacks. Current observational study is designed to investigate the effectiveness of BB, CCB and its combination in angina patients. Angina patients from different tertiary care hospital cardiology OPDs were recruited from June 2022 to June 2023. Patient's history and suspected adverse drug effects (ADE) observed by manual chart review. Results showed baseline demographics and comorbidities were similar. Medication assessment revealed that most patients were on CCB (54.4%) and BB (36.36%) than combination (9.8%). Compared with BB, CCB and combination drugs taking patients represented stable heart rate and blood pressure (P<0.05). There were insignificant differences were observed in electrolytes and lipid profile in each groups. In addition, the Seattle questionnaire for angina (SQA) showed improved symptoms in 83 patients out of 110 (P<0.05). Further ADE were observed by using Naranjo scale that represented BB taking patients were found to have more ADRs than CCB and combination therapy. In conclusion, patients using BB, CCB or a combination of CCB+BB had improved angina symptoms and represented same efficacy however CCB exhibited lesser number of ADRs that shows CCB is more effective than BB in prolong use of angina control.