August 7th, 2011
Help Cover ESC for CardioExchange
Harlan M. Krumholz, MD, SM
Ever dream of being a writer living in Paris? Here’s your chance.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
August 1st, 2011
A Set of Calculators for Estimating Readmission Risk
Harlan M. Krumholz, MD, SM
If you are interested in a tool that estimates the readmission risk of a patient who has been hospitalized for acute myocardial infarction, heart failure, or pneumonia, you can find one at www.readmissionscore.org. Readmission rates are increasingly a focus of quality-of-care efforts in the U.S., including those initiated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid […]
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 […]
July 28th, 2011
AstraZeneca Sets Premium Price for Ticagrelor
Larry Husten, PHD
AstraZeneca will be charging a premium price for its new antiplatelet drug ticagrelor (Brilinta). Wall Street analyst Timothy Anderson reports that the daily treatment cost for the drug will be $7.24 on a wholesaler acquisition cost (WAC) basis, which is approximately 20% higher than the daily cost of $6.08 for clopidogrel (Plavix) and about 25% […]
July 27th, 2011
Mixed Results for New Implantable Device to Treat Resistant Hypertension
Larry Husten, PHD
A phase III trial has yielded mixed results for an experimental implantable device that uses baroreflex activation therapy (BAT) to treat resistant hypertension. The article on the manufacturer-funded Rheos Pivotal Trial, by John Bisognano and colleagues, has been published online in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The Rheos device was implanted in […]
July 26th, 2011
Coronary and Cerebrovascular Disease May Differ in Their Heritability
Larry Husten, PHD
Although coronary and cerebrovascular disease usually receive equal weight when family history is assessed as a risk factor, a new study suggests that family history may play a more important role in MI and ACS than in stroke or TIA. In an article published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics, Amitava Banerjee and colleagues report the results […]
NEJM Journal Watch — Recent Cardiology Articles- Sudden Cardiac Death in the U.S.: 20-Year Trends
- Oral Semaglutide Approved to Lower Cardiovascular Risk in High-Risk Patients with Type 2 Diabetes
- Covid-19 Vaccines Improve Heart Outcomes
- Detecting Atrial Fibrillation After Transient In-Hospital Episodes
- Cardiac Involvement with Mycoplasma pneumonia: More Common Than Previously Thought