CardioExchange Archive

August 9th, 2011

New Study Finds Wide Variation Among Hospitals in Diagnostic Yield for Angiography

Larry Husten, PHD

Last year a report in the New England Journal of Medicine from the National Cardiovascular Data Registry (NCDR) raised concerns about the low diagnostic yield for diagnostic coronary angiography. Now a new analysis of the NCDR registry appearing in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology finds a great deal of variability among hospitals […]

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August 8th, 2011

Bernadine Healy, First Woman to Head the NIH, Dead of Brain Tumor

Larry Husten, PHD

Bernadine Healy, a cardiologist who was the first woman to head the NIH, died on Saturday from complications of a brain tumor. She was married to cardiac surgeon Floyd Loop, a former CEO of the Cleveland Clinic. She had two daughters, one from a previous marriage. Healy was born in 1944 and grew up in New […]

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August 5th, 2011

USA Today Finds Disparity Between Hospital Performance and Public Perception

Larry Husten, PHD

Patients may think they’re going to a high-quality hospital when in fact they’re not, according to an analysis of Medicare data appearing in USA Today, by reporters Steve Sternberg and Christopher Schnaars. The USA Today website also contains an interactive graphic with a user-friendly interface, to help readers compare hospital death rates and readmission rates […]

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August 4th, 2011

Yale Receives $2.5 Million from Medtronic for Independent Evaluation of rhBMP-2

Larry Husten, PHD

Responding to intense criticism from the government, the press, and the academic community, Medtronic announced that it was giving $2.5 million to Yale researchers to oversee independent reviews of the safety and effectiveness of rhBMP-2 (Infuse). Criticism of the spinal growth product was the sole topic of the June issue of the Spine Journal. Yale’s […]

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August 4th, 2011

Easy Come, Easy Go? ESC to Review Dronedarone’s Role in AF Guidelines

Larry Husten, PHD

Less than a year after speeding into the European Society of Cardiology’s atrial fibrillation guidelines with a class 1 recommendation, the role of dronedarone (Multaq, Sanofi) in the treatment of AF will be reconsidered. “The ESC will produce a focused update of the AF Guidelines when the full results of PALLAS have been published and regulatory authorities […]

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August 4th, 2011

Pfizer Wants to Market OTC Atorvastatin (Lipitor)

Larry Husten, PHD

Pfizer will attempt to gain FDA approval to sell atorvastatin (Lipitor) over-the-counter, according to a report by Peter Loftus in the Wall Street Journal. In the past, the FDA has turned down requests to market other statins over-the-counter. Lipitor is scheduled to go off patent in November, well before an OTC version of the drug […]

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August 3rd, 2011

Recommended Reading: A Critical (and Funny) View of Antioxidants

Larry Husten, PHD

“Antioxidants don’t work, but no one wants to hear it,” writes Kent Sepkowitz, an infectious diseases specialist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, in Slate. Sepkowitz reviews the sparse scientific knowledge about antioxidants and then discusses the difficulties faced by physicians who “were slow to jump onto the antioxidant bandwagon and are slower still to jump off.” “Few medical […]

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August 1st, 2011

Moderate Exercise Delivers the Biggest Bang for the Buck

Larry Husten, PHD

Although the beneficial effects of physical activity in lowering risk for coronary heart disease (CHD) have been long recognized, the relative benefits of different levels of activity are not well understood. Now, a meta-analysis published in Circulation helps fill this significant gap. Jacob Sattelmair and colleagues identified nine studies that provided quantitative data about the effects […]

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August 1st, 2011

Going Beyond COURAGE: NHLBI Funds the ISCHEMIA Study

Larry Husten, PHD

The NHLBI has awarded an $84 million grant to fund the International Study of Comparative Health Effectiveness with Medical and Invasive Approaches (ISCHEMIA). The trial will randomize 8,000 patients with stable ischemic heart disease and moderate-to-severe ischemia. Two different treatment strategies will be compared: An invasive strategy, consisting of early routine cardiac catheterization followed by revascularization […]

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July 29th, 2011

Controversial IOM Report Highly Critical of 510(k) Process

Larry Husten, PHD

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has released a report highly critical of the FDA’s 510(k) medical device clearance process and called on the FDA to develop “a new framework that used both premarket clearance and improved postmarket surveillance of device performance to provide reasonable assurance of the safety and effectiveness of Class II devices.” The […]

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