CardioExchange Archive

Responding to the News: It’s been an extraordinary week for cardiology news, with major papers and controversies about rosiglitazone, statins, JUPITER, and clopidogrel. Here are a few statements and news reports that you might want to know about: 

ACC/AHA release clinical alert in response to FDA boxed warning about anti-platelet agent, clopidogrel (ACC/AHA)

New analyses report different outcomes in use of thiazolidinedione (TZD) drugs for diabetes patients (AHA)
Daiichi Sankyo/Lilly respond to ACCF/AHA clinical alert on antiplatelet therapy (Daiichi Sankyo/Lilly)
A fix for the Avandia mess (Harlan Krumholz on Forbes.com)
Another leaked rosiglitazone manuscript? Controversy spikes as JAMA, Archives publish new papers (heartwire)
JUPITER gets a battering, but Ridker fights back (heartwire)
New meta-analysis of statins in primary prevention does not suggest significant reduction in all-cause mortality (heartwire)
Authors of JUPITER attack are members of obscure anti-cholesterol group (CardioBrief)
The cholesterol debate and journal disclosures (Pharmalot)

Retinopathy in ACCORD: In a paper presented at the American Diabetes Association and simultaneously published online in the New England Journal of Medicine, the ACCORD Study Group and the ACCORD Eye Study Group report findings of the ACCORD trials on the progression of diabetic retinopathy in a subset of 2856 ACCORD participants. At 4 years, the investigators found that intensive glycemic control and intensive combination treatment of dyslipidemia significantly slowed the progression of retinopathy, while intensive blood pressure control did not.

Intensive glycemia therapy vs. standard therapy: 7.3% vs 10.4% (P=0.003)
Fenofibrate vs. placebo: 6.5% vs 10.2% (P=0.006)
Intensive blood-pressure therapy vs. standard therapy: 10.4% vs 8.8% (P=0.29)