[beta-Receptor blockers in the early stage of myocardial infarction with left ventricular failure (author's transl)]

In infarct-induced acute left ventricular failure, beta-receptor blockers are considered to be contraindicated. On the assumption that in left ventricular pumping failure in the early stages of the infarction there is a state of functional hypercontractility of the myocardium, we accordingly treated infarction in its early stage with the beta-blocker talinolol (Cordanum). Digitalis glycosides were not used in the acute phase. None of the 32 patients with hemodynamically complicated infarcts treated with beta-receptor blockers died of hemodynamic failure. The total mortality of these patients was 4/32, the mortality of anterior wall infarcts was 1/21. According to this experience beta-receptor blockers appear to be a possibility for treatment of hemodynamically complicated myocardial infarctions in the early stage which has so far not been taken advantage of.