CardioExchange Archive

October 18th, 2010

“Um”

Westby G Fisher, MD

CardioExchange welcomes this guest post reprinted with permission from Dr. Westby Fisher, an electrophysiologist practicing at NorthShore University HealthSystem, Evanston, IL and a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Medicine. This piece originally appeared on his blog, Dr. Wes. I never like to hear “Um…” from nurses or industry representatives during surgical procedures. […]

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October 18th, 2010

New CPR Guidelines Replace A-B-C with C-A-B

Larry Husten, PHD

Chest compressions gain pride of place (and trump alphabetical order) in the newly published and  much-anticipated updated guidelines for CPR from the AHA. The new guidelines replace the traditional A-B-C (Airway-Breathing-Compressions) with C-A-B (Compressions-Airway-Breathing), recommending that “chest compressions be the first step for lay and professional rescuers to revive victims of sudden cardiac arrest.” The […]

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October 14th, 2010

Meta-Analysis Lends More Support to Compression-Only CPR

Larry Husten, PHD

There’s new evidence supporting the movement away from traditional bystander CPR in favor of chest-compression-only CPR. In a paper appearing online in the Lancet, Michael Hüpfl, Harald F Selig, and Peter Nagele report the results of two separate meta-analyses. In the first meta-analysis, the investigators combined data from 3 randomized trials comparing compression-only CPR to […]

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October 14th, 2010

Want to Blog with Other Fellows at the AHA?

Andrew M. Kates, MD and James De Lemos, MD

CardioExchange is looking for a few cardiology fellows who are planning to attend the AHA meeting on November 13-17 to blog at the meeting. If you’re interested, drop us a line. Let us know the dates that you plan to be at the meeting and any subspecialty or research interest that you might have. The […]

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October 13th, 2010

No Conflict, No Interest

Shanti Bansal, MD

On a brisk, cold evening I boarded an overnight plane from my hometown to Cincinnati.  Once I landed, a gentleman dressed in a black suit with a grin over his face was waiting for me at the airport to drive me to my hotel.  The driver led me through green untouched pastures and over a […]

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October 13th, 2010

Sequencing Study Identifies Gene Mutations Tied to Hypolipidemia

Larry Husten, PHD

By sequencing all protein-coding regions of the genome in two people with combined hypolipidemia, researchers have identified a gene that may lead to a new method to lower LDL cholesterol. The report by Kiran Musunuru and colleagues, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, has its origins in a study started in 1994 of […]

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October 12th, 2010

Heart Failure and Resource Use at the End of the Road

Larry Husten, PHD

Two studies of heart failure populations — one conducted in the U.S. and one in Canada —  shed light on patterns of resource use in the last 6 months of life. Both studies appear in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Kathleen Unroe and colleagues retrospectively analyzed resource use in a cohort of nearly 230,000 U.S. […]

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October 8th, 2010

Abbott Withdraws Sibutramine from U.S. Market

Larry Husten, PHD

Abbott has pulled its weight-loss drug sibutramine (Meridia) from the U.S. market. A safety communication from the FDA said the “drug may pose unnecessary cardiovascular risks to patients.” Earlier this year the drug was withdrawn in Europe. Sibutramine was approved by the FDA in 1997. The FDA recommendation is based upon a recent analysis of […]

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October 8th, 2010

Analysis of ADVANCE Explores Role of Hypoglycemia

Larry Husten, PHD

A new analysis of the ADVANCE (Action in Diabetes and Vascular Disease: Preterax and Diamicron Modified Release Controlled Evaluation) trial sheds light on the role of hypoglycemia in recent trials of glucose control. In a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine, the ADVANCE investigators report that 2.1% of 11,140 patients with type 2 diabetes […]

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October 7th, 2010

Genome Studies Pool Data to Gain Power

Larry Husten, PHD

Leaders of several genome-wide association studies have agreed to collaborate and combine their data in the hope that by dramatically raising the sample size of their studies, they will “contribute to our understanding of the role of common genetic variation on risk for CAD and MI.” In an article in Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics, Michael Preuss and […]

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