PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Ravin Mistry AU - David Walker TI - Perioperative beta-blockade: might the baby go out with the bath water? AID - 10.7861/clinmedicine.14-6-604 DP - 2014 Dec 01 TA - Clinical Medicine PG - 604--607 VI - 14 IP - 6 4099 - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/14/6/604.short 4100 - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/14/6/604.full SO - Clin Med2014 Dec 01; 14 AB - Perioperative β-blocker therapy has been advocated to reduce cardiac mortality and morbidity in high-risk cardiac patients undergoing non-cardiac surgery. Core data that supported this intervention and informed international societal guidelines has recently been withdrawn. A subsequent meta-analysis of the remaining data reporting excess mortality has re-opened the debate about the utility of β-blocker therapy in the perioperative period. Criticism of remaining trial designs and new insights into the protective mechanisms of β-blocker therapy in critical illness raise important questions that should now be addressed by a further robust, high-quality randomised control trial.