ArticleBMJ open2026
Lack of association between the brain penetrance of calcium channel blockers and the incidence of neuropsychiatric outcomes: a retrospective, multidatabase cohort study.
Article in BMJ open, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Mental Health Across the Atrial Fibrillation Continuum: Mechanisms, Outcomes, and Clinical Implications.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo use best practices in pharmacoepidemiology to assess the association between new use of brain-penetrant calcium channel blockers (BP-CCBs) compared with use of non-brain-penetrant CCBs (NP-CCBs) and the incidence of neuropsychiatric outcomes.
designRetrospective comparative cohort study.
settingSecondary data from nine claims and electronic health record databases from across the globe were used.
participantsFirst use of a CCB was the index date. There were 1.2 million BP-CCB patients and 9.3 million NP-CCB patients identified across all databases, with 881 758 matched in each group.
interventionsPatients were categorised as either initiating BP-CCBs or NP-CCBs. On-treatment and intention-to-treat analyses were conducted. Large-scale propensity models were used to match cohorts and control for observed confounding. Cox models were used to analyse the time to incident neuropsychiatric disorders. Negative control outcomes were used to calibrate estimates, CIs and p values to account for residual confounding. Diagnostics were used to assess the validity of the analysis. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: The time to first diagnosis of schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, major depressive disorder (MDD) and bipolar disorder was assessed independently. HRs compared the BP-CCB group to the NP-CCB group.
resultsFor the outcome of incident MDD in the intention-to-treat design, the meta-analytic HR (95% CI) was 1.02 (0.97, 1.08). Meta-analytic HRs for bipolar disorder (1.04 (0.96, 1.13)), schizophrenia (1.05 (0.94, 1.18)) and schizoaffective disorder (1.04 (0.87, 1.23)) showed similar null effects. The on-treatment analysis was largely consistent: MDD (1.01 (0.96, 1.06)), bipolar (1.05 (0.86, 1.27)), schizophrenia (1.09 (0.87, 1.38)) and schizoaffective (1.00 (0.71, 1.40)).
conclusionsThere was no evidence of an association with any of the neuropsychiatric conditions of interest between use of BP-CCB and NP-CCB. This does not rule out the potential beneficial effect of CCB formulations and doses targeted specifically for the brain rather than the cardiovascular system.
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