CardioExchange Archive

May 4th, 2010

• HF Readmission: See Me Now Or See Me Later
• No Reduction in MI Following Pneumococcal Vaccination

Larry Husten, PHD

HF Readmission: See Me Now Or See Me Later: After being hospitalized for heart failure (HF), patients who are treated at hospitals with higher rates of early follow-up have lower rates of readmission at 30 days, according to a new study appearing in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Adrian Hernandez and colleagues analyzed […]

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May 3rd, 2010

• European Heart Journal Editors Defend Nissen Editorial
• The Straight Dope — HGH Improves Sprint Capacity

Larry Husten, PHD

European Heart Journal Editors Defend Nissen Editorial: In an editorial published online in the European Heart Journal, the editors of the journal defend the publication of an editorial by Steven Nissen on rosiglitazone. The editorial had been published online on February 12, prompting a GlaxoSmithKline executive to write the editors asking them not to publish […]

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April 29th, 2010

Genomics Rubber Meets the Clinical Road

Larry Husten, PHD

Genomics Rubber Meets the Clinical Road: In a study without precedent, an asymptomatic 40-year-old man with a family history of coronary disease and sudden death received a comprehensive analysis of his full genome. According to the report in the Lancet, the investigators from Stanford and Massachusetts General Hospital found evidence that the man was at […]

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April 29th, 2010

Do Hospital Rankings Have Any Good Use?

ashsehgal and Larry Husten, PHD

Hospital rankings now play an increasingly important role in the healthcare marketplace. In no field is the power of these rankings felt more than in cardiology. Ashwini Sehgal, the first author of a recent report in Annals of Internal Medicine, “The Role of Reputation in U.S. News & World Report‘s Rankings of the Top 50 […]

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April 28th, 2010

• Vitamin B May Be Harmful in Diabetic Nephropathy
• Judge Rejects Guidant Plea Agreement

Larry Husten, PHD

Vitamin B May Be Harmful in Diabetic Nephropathy: Once again the early hopes for vitamin B have been dashed against the rocks of a clinical trial. In a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Andrew House and colleagues report the results of DIVINe (Diabetic Intervention with Vitamins to Improve Nephropathy), a multicenter, […]

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April 27th, 2010

• Good News & Bad News for Calcium Scores
• Really Bad News for Steroid Users

Larry Husten, PHD

Good News & Bad News for Calcium Scores: Using data from 5,878 participants in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), Polonsky and colleagues assessed the value of adding coronary artery calcium (CAC) scores to traditional risk factor assessments. In their report in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the investigators concluded that adding CAC […]

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April 26th, 2010

• New Study Raises Fresh Concerns About Clopidogrel and PPIs
• Universal Versus Targeted Screening

Larry Husten, PHD

New Study Raises Fresh Concerns About Clopidogrel and PPIs: In a retrospective analysis of a large insurance plan appearing in Archives of Internal Medicine, patients taking a PPI and clopidogrel had a 93% higher risk of rehospitalization for MI than patients taking clopidogrel alone. To better account for underlying differences associated with PPI use, the […]

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April 22nd, 2010

Liraglutide Beats Sitagliptin in Glucose Control

Larry Husten, PHD

Liraglutide Beats Sitagliptin in Glucose Control: A once-daily injection of the GLP-1 analog liraglutide was superior to the DPP-4 inhibitor sitagliptin in reducing glucose levels in type-2 diabetics already taking metformin. The report by Richard Pratley and colleagues on more than 600 patients enrolled in the parallel-group, open-label trial appears in the Lancet. Liraglutide also […]

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April 22nd, 2010

Endomyocardial Biopsy versus Gene-Expression Profiling

Larry Husten, PHD

Endomyocardial Biopsy versus Gene-Expression Profiling: It may be possible to replace routine endomyocardial biopsy with gene-expression profiling in some cardiac-transplant patients, according to a new study presented at the annual meeting of the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation and published online in the New England Journal of Medicine. The IMAGE Study Group randomized […]

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April 21st, 2010

• The IOM Passes the Salt to the FDA
• Promising Results for Novel Dual DES

Larry Husten, PHD

The IOM Passes the Salt to the FDA: The Institute of Medicine released a report, “Strategies to Reduce Sodium Intake in the United States,” that urges the FDA to set “new government standards for the accept­able level of sodium.” The goal, according to the report, “is to slowly, over time, reduce the sodium content of […]

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