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TUESDAY, Oct. 13, 2020 (HealthDay News) — Current angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor (ACE-I) or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) use is associated with a slightly lower mortality risk in patients hospitalized with influenza or pneumonia, according to a study published online Oct. 1 in the Journal of the American Heart Association<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Christian Fynbo Christiansen, M.D., Ph.D., from Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark, and colleagues examined the impact of ACE-Is\/ARBs on respiratory tract infection outcomes among all adult patients hospitalized with influenza or pneumonia from 2005 to 2018 in Denmark.<\/p>\n
The researchers reported that of 568,019 patients hospitalized with influenza or pneumonia, 100,278 were ACE-I\/ARB users and 37,961 were users of calcium channel blockers. ACE-I\/ARB users had marginally lower 30-day mortality than users of calcium channel blockers (13.9 versus 14.5 percent; relative risk, 0.96) and had a lower risk for admission to the intensive care unit (8.0 versus 9.6 percent; relative risk, 0.83) in propensity score-weighted analyses. Current ACE-I\/ARB users had lower mortality (relative risk, 0.85; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.83 to 0.87) but similar risk for admission to the intensive care unit (relative risk, 1.04; 95 percent confidence interval, 1.00 to 1.09) compared with nonusers.<\/p>\n
“We haven’t examined whether what applies to patients with influenza and pneumonia can be transferred directly to patients with COVID-19, but there is some evidence to suggest that ACE inhibitors have a protective effect against lung damage which we don’t see in patients who take other types of medicine to lower blood pressure,” Christiansen said in a statement.<\/p>\n