A new, long-term study recently released in the New England Journal of Medicine has cardiologists in Western Pennsylvania divided on its potential impacts on the field and how it may impact the treatment of heart attack victims in the future.

This August, the results were released for the REBOOT trial, a long-term study of over 8,500 heart attack patients in Spain and Italy who were administered beta blocker drugs as treatment. Beta blockers have been a standard medication used to manage the immediate aftermath of a heart attack for decades.

“The research back in the ’80s showed that patients who had a heart attack, if they were put on a beta blocker, they seemed to do better than if they weren't,” said Dr. Amish Mehta, director of noninvasive cardiology at AHN Jefferson Hospital in Pitt

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