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As part of his mission to see more financial transparency in medicine, Sen Grassley has asked eight top US medical schools about their policies on ghostwriting.
A dose-finding study saw what were characterized as low bleeding rates associated with triple-drug antithrombotic therapy that included the oral anticoagulant dabigatran in patients with a recent ACS event and other cardiovascular risk factors.
Publicly released report cards based on hospital performance did not result in a measurably greater systemwide improvement in two composite AMI or CHF process-of-care indicators in a Canadian study. But they did appear to stimulate some important changes in delivery of care that could have led to some better outcomes.
A new analysis confirms that regardless of INR control achieved across participating centers, dabigatran remained noninferior at the lower dose and superior at the higher dose to warfarin for prevention of stroke and systemic embolism.
UPDATED WITH COMMENTARY // The randomized trial, which compared losartan dosages of 150 mg/day and 50 mg/day, "makes a strong case for the value of incremental inhibition of the renin-angiotensin system," its authors say.
New registry data presented this week showed that cardiologists are more likely to select rhythm control over rate control for the treatment of atrial fibrillation, and this strategy is more likely to lead to successful treatment of AF than the rate-control-based approach. Both strategies are equivalent in terms of their effect on clinical outcomes.
AEDs manufactured by Cardiac Science are undergoing a nationwide voluntary medical device correctionbecause of the potential failure of these devices to deliver therapy during use.
A device that allows therapeutic hypothermia to begin in the field has been shown to be safe and its use feasible in treating out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.
Ticagrelor, an investigational antiplatelet agent, may become a new standard of care for the management of patients with STEMI heading for primary PCI, said the lead investigator of the STEMI subset of the PLATO trial. Reporting the new findings here today, he said they were consistent with the overall PLATO results.
In patients with conventional indications for pacing and normal systolic function, preservation of synchrony with biventricular pacing prevented the adverse remodeling effects of right-ventricular-only pacing. But some question the trial's methods.
It's routinely assessed but underappreciated as a risk marker: the natural, unpaced heart rate of patients with implanted defibrillators was a strong, independent predictor of poor clinical outcomes in a retrospective analysis.
Now that the US House of Representatives has passed a healthcare reform bill, organized medicine anticipates another votepossibly next weekon a second bill that would rewrite Medicare's controversial sustainable-growth-rate formula for physician reimbursement.
The agency is following up on 14 reports over the past three years of unsuccessful defibrillation/cardioversion attempts from a 200-J device followed by successful therapy from a 360-J unit.
Anticipation is building for full trial results from ARBITER 6-HALTS, plus a better understanding of what went wrong with cangrelor in the CHAMPION trials. Also in the lineup are updates from PLATO, RE-LY, ALLHAT, BARI 2D, STICH, CASCADE, POPULAR, HEARTMATE II, and many more. Indeed, this year's "late-breaking" sessions include more than 30 trials over five days.
Obesity and hypertension were major independent risk factors for left atrial enlargement (itself a risk factor for atrial fibrillation) in an observational, population-based study, but obesity was the strongest predictor.
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.
Dr. Ileana Piña 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.
There is an increasing epidemic; the threat is real. With prevalence up and recent therapeutic advances few, atrial fibrillation and the accompanying risk for stroke need to be uppermost in the minds of physicians caring for patients with cardiovascular risk factors. Join Dr. Jerry Naccarelli as he leads a panel of experts consisting of Drs. Osseroff, Capucci and Lau, in a discussion of this global problem.
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.
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.