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No survival differences after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest were seen at a preliminary DSMB review in the ROC PRIMED trial, which compared early vs delayed post-CPR assessment for defibrillation and tested the effectiveness of a device for optimizing intrathoracic pressure during CPR.
Long work shifts with nighttime on-call duty, with the inevitable interruptions of sleep, are associated with ECG, blood-pressure, and biochemical changes associated with increased cardiovascular risk, suggests a randomized crossover study that hints at a sustained effect on the risk markers if the 24-hour shifts happen too frequently.
A US update on the perioperative use of beta blockers for noncardiac surgery is, says the lead author, "similar" to recent European guidance on this issue.
An additional year of data from the INCREMENTAL study showed that echo-targeted LV lead positioning increased the likelihood of a response to device therapy by about 40% over standard lead placement. But does that difference translate into better long-term outcomes for the patient?
The fact that elevated baseline NT-proBNP levels predict a diagnosis of AF even 16 years later suggests that peptide elevations precede the onset of arrhythmia, according to the researchers.
With few studies in the literature specifically looking at the issue, a prospective, population-based study in Sweden has found no significant rise or fall in risk of heart-failure hospitalization or death at increasing levels of coffee intake.
Two-thirds of the 156 trials considered by the AHA in preparing a recent guideline failed to even record the ethnic backgrounds of participants, a new study has found. The researchers call for the reporting of race/ethnicity to be mandatory in all clinical trials, and they suggest medical journals should enforce this policy.
Are the data not shouting loud enough, or is cardiology hard of herring? Omega-3 fatty acids may have only a modest treatment effect in heart failure, but they've performed swimmingly in randomized and observational studies considering how few new HF drugs have been reeled in lately.
In a case-control study from Denmark, the risk of atrial fibrillation or flutter was significantly increased with current but not previous use of glucocorticoids for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and other conditions.
Defibrillators implanted within a month of acute MI may prevent sudden cardiac deaths, but they don't reduce overall mortality, according to a trial that supports current guidelines based primarily on the smaller 2004 trial DINAMIT.
Its developers say the prediction model for guiding management of patients presenting with dyspnea can make a difference when clinicians aren't sure about the diagnosis based on clinical signs. An editorial takes issue.
Investigators say that although the analysis raises the possibility that a drug with antiarrhythmic activity could reduce the risk of stroke, dronedarone is not a replacement for oral anticoagulant therapy or a treatment for stroke prevention.
The "Principles on Conduct of Clinical Trials and Communication of Clinical Trial Results" echo recent standards set by medical journal editors, but some observers say the document, which has no penalty component, lacks real teeth.
Now in print after having been presented at meetings, the REVERSE randomized trial's European-cohort two-year results are consistent with the recently published, much larger MADIT-CRT trial in showing both clinical and LV structural benefits from resynchronization therapy in patients with NYHA class 1-2 heart failure.
They lived just as long, but in a small randomized trial, patients with acute decompensated heart failure who received hospital-quality care in their homes as an alternative to hospital admission after presentation to the emergency department benefited in ways missed by those managed as inpatients in the traditional manner.
Atrial fibrillation was more likely to develop in diabetics than in nondiabetics in a new observational study, and the link was particularly strong in women.
The proposed biomarker, which seems to apparently play a role in the progression of cardiomyopathy and heart failure, predicted mortality or HF hospitalization in a post hoc analysis from the already published COACH randomized trial.
A pilot analysis suggests the cell therapy can improve functional capacity, but amiodarone may be needed to prevent ventricular arrhythmias; its investigators say they plan to switch gears on the remainder of the study.
Better late than never in the age of evidence-based medicine, a randomized test of an established strategy might have confirmed the value of adding dopamine to loop diuretics to allow the latter at reduced, less kidney-damaging dosages.
The two-year prospective registry-based study of a performance-improvement initiative's effectiveness saw significant jumps, >70% in some cases, in the appropriate use of six out of seven measured evidence-based treatments for patients with chronic heart failure.
Dr. Ileana Piņa discusses the design and outcomes of the MADIT-CRT trial with Drs. Moss and Estes, and how these new data may benefit patients with heart failure.
Does early intervention with CRT-D slow the progression of heart failure? Watch as Dr. David Cannom interviews Drs. Camm, Hlatky, Klein, Moss and Page, and gets their expert opinions on late-breaking clinical trial data released at ESC 09 and how it will affect patient care.
Rate control, rhythm control, new drugs and devices for anticoagulation -- the armamentarium of treatment options is expanding rapidly. Drs. Yancy, Cannon, and Boehmer discuss the latest treatment modalities for patients with AF.
Read Dr. Jonathan Piccini's review of prevention of stroke in AF and how the newly released results of clinical trials of novel antithrombotic agents will reduce the risk for stroke. Then listen to our international panel of experts, Drs. Camm, Granger, Prystowsky, and Yusuf, as they give their take on new data released at ESC 2009.
Join our international panel of experts, Drs. Lip, Halperin, Weitz, Ezekowitz, Wallentin, and Connolly as they present late-breaking results of the RE-LY trial.
Evidence-based therapies, both pharmacologic and devices are well documented in published guidelines, but are they followed and implemented in practice? Is there a treatment gap? Is it all about education or the lack thereof? Drs. Yancy, Abraham, and Pfeffer confer on evidence from recent registries and trials.
The results of MADIT-CRT suggest patients with early stage (NYHA class I/II) symptomatic heart failure (HF) indicated for an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) may benefit from the addition of cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT). How likely are these results to increase device implant rates? Take our poll and see how your colleagues responded.
Atrial fibrillation is associated with a high risk for stroke, myocardial infarction, heart failure, and death. How does blockade of the renin-angiotensin system affect patient outcomes? Join our international panel of experts, Drs Camm, Connolly, Crijns, and Granger, as they discuss the ESC 09 hotline results of the ACTIVE-I trial.
Dr. Jeroen Bax, on the cusp of publishing a landmark paper to validate the role of MIBG imaging in risk stratifying patients with heart failure, provides a snapshot of his study in this interview from Europace 2009.