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heartbriefs
Sen Grassley questions top medical schools about ghostwriting
Nov 20, 2009 13:15 EST
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.
Acute Coronary Syndromes
Oral anticoagulants REDEEMed? Daily dabigatran "safe" with dual antiplatelets after MI
Nov 19, 2009 11:00 EST
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.
News
EFFECT: Public reporting of hospital performance improves quality of care?
Nov 19, 2009 10:00 EST
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.
Medscape Medical News
RE-LY: Post hoc analysis confirms benefit of dabigatran relative to warfarin at all INR levels
Nov 17, 2009 16:30 EST
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.
Heart failure
HEAAL: High-dose trumps low-dose ARB for heart failure in the ACE-inhibitor intolerant
1 COMMENT - Nov 17, 2009 08:15 EST
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.
Arrhythmia/EP
RECORD AF: Better success with rhythm control, but no difference in outcomes
Nov 16, 2009 17:00 EST
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.
Medscape Medical News
Medical device correction issued for Cardiac Science AEDs
Nov 16, 2009 13:00 EST
AEDs manufactured by Cardiac Science are undergoing a nationwide voluntary medical device correction because of the potential failure of these devices to deliver therapy during use.
Arrhythmia/EP
REPLACE registry finds 15.3% six-month complication rate with pacer and ICD lead replacements
Nov 16, 2009 09:30 EST
The REPLACE registry finds "sobering" comprehensive risk rates with pacemaker and ICD upgrades.
Medscape Medical News
PRINCE: Prehospital intranasal cooling after cardiac arrest feasible, may improve survival
Nov 16, 2009 08:45 EST
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.
Acute Coronary Syndromes
Good news continues for ticagrelor in PLATO STEMI subanalysis
1 COMMENT - Nov 15, 2009 19:30 EST
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.
Arrhythmia/EP
PACE: BiV pacing protects against RV pacing's adverse ventricular effects in randomized trial
Nov 15, 2009 16:30 EST
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.
Arrhythmia/EP
Natural ventricular rate a powerful risk predictor in ICD trial
2 COMMENTS - Nov 12, 2009 17:15 EST
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.
Medscape Medical News
SGR repair bill failure could cool physician support for healthcare reform
Nov 12, 2009 15:00 EST
Now that the US House of Representatives has passed a healthcare reform bill, organized medicine anticipates another vote—possibly next week—on a second bill that would rewrite Medicare's controversial sustainable-growth-rate formula for physician reimbursement.
heartbriefs
FDA investigating external-defib energy levels
2 COMMENTS - Nov 11, 2009 11:45 EST
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.
News
What's going to be hot at AHA 2009?
2 COMMENTS - Nov 11, 2009 09:00 EST
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.
Arrhythmia/EP
Obesity may top hypertension as risk factor for LA enlargement
Nov 9, 2009 17:00 EST
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.
Murmurs
Interventional cardiologist Donald Baim dies
19 COMMENTS - Nov 6, 2009 18:22 EST
UPDATED // Interventional cardiologist Dr Donald Baim, chief medical and scientific officer at Boston Scientific, has died.
Arrhythmia/EP
Enrollment halts in randomized trial of CPR for out-of-hospital arrest
Nov 6, 2009 16:00 EST
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.
Prevention
Another in-hospital CV risk marker: 24-hour shifts with overnight on-call duty
1 COMMENT - Nov 4, 2009 09:45 EST
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.
Interventional/Surgery
US updates advice on perioperative beta-blocker use in noncardiac surgery
6 COMMENTS - Nov 3, 2009 14:30 EST
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.
Heart failure
Benefits of targeted lead placement with CRT devices supported by long-term mortality data
Oct 29, 2009 15:00 EDT
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?
Interventional/Surgery
Underutilization of ICDs in CABG patients is worst in women and elderly, Halifax study shows
1 COMMENT - Oct 28, 2009 16:45 EDT
Only 101 of 1169 post-bypass-surgery patients eligible for an ICD got one over a 13-year period in Nova Scotia.
Arrhythmia/EP
NT-proBNP "remarkable predictor" of incident atrial fibrillation
1 COMMENT - Oct 23, 2009 16:30 EDT
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.
Clinical cardiology
Simple cooling methods improve neurologic outcomes after cardiac arrest, new review confirms
Oct 22, 2009 11:00 EDT
A new literature review confirms that conventional cooling methods work safely to improve survival and reduce brain damage after cardiac arrest.
Heart failure
No link seen between heart failure and coffee intake
Oct 16, 2009 10:15 EDT
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.

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Arrhythmia/EP
Evaluation and Treatment of Patients With Atrial Fibrillation
Oct 21, 2009 11:32 EDT
Dr. Anne Curtis offers 2 cases of high-risk patients who present with shortness of breath. How are these patients diagnosed and treated?
Arrhythmia/EP
Treating Atrial Fibrillation: A Multidisciplinary Approach
Oct 16, 2009 09:05 EDT
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.
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Arrhythmia/EP
Expanding Role of HF-Device Therapy?
Sep 28, 2009 14:20 EDT
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.
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