Use of β blockers during surgery may have caused 10 000 deaths in the UK

Up to 10 000 deaths may have been caused in the United Kingdom by following a guideline that can no longer be relied upon, says an analysis by a group from Imperial College in London.

Writing in Heart online, the group said that a guideline recommending the use of β blockers to protect the heart during non-cardiac surgery relied heavily on results from a trial led by a now discredited Dutch researcher, Don Poldermans.1 To make matters worse, Poldermans also chaired the committee that wrote the guideline.

Darrel Francis and colleagues said that there was no proof …