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Joël Belmin, MD
Hôpital René Muret-Bigottini Sevran, France

JAMA. 1992;267(9):1208.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.

—From their retrospective study in Beth Israel Hospital, Forman and Wei¹ concluded that the agerelated decrease in use of β-blockers in elderly patients with myocardial infarction was out of proportion to the prevalence of contraindications to these drugs. However, their data indicated the opposite.

They in fact showed that this age-related decrease seems to be entirely related to a higher prevalence of contraindications in the older groups. The percentage of patients receiving β-blockers when expressed as a function of patients with no contraindications ("patients without problems") was similar in all age groups or was even higher in the septuagenarian group: 38.4% among those aged 50 through 59 years, 37.4% among those aged 60 through 69 years, 40.5% among those aged 70 through 79 years, and 36.7% among those older than 80 years. Finally, among their patients older than 50 years with myocardial infarction and no contraindication . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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