CardioExchange Archive

August 27th, 2010

High-Risk PCI: Is an IABP Necessary?

Larry Husten, PHD

Simon Redwood and Divaka Perera answer our questions about their randomized trial of IABP insertion during high-risk PCI in patients with severe LV dysfunction and extensive coronary disease. Check out our conversation and then ask them your own questions here.

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August 27th, 2010

Compression-Only CPR: It May Help Bystanders Breathe Easier

Mark Steven Link, MD

A recent randomized, controlled study in the NEJM showed that patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest who received compression-only CPR or traditional CPR had similar 30-day survival rates. CardioExchange asks Dr. Mark Link, a cardiac electrophysiologist and member of the American Heart Association Advanced Cardiac Life Support Committee, to answer our questions about compression-only vs. traditional […]

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August 27th, 2010

Door-to-Balloon vs. Total Health System Delay: Which Clock Matters Most?

Larry Husten, PHD

Rick Lange brings the latest research on door-to-balloon times and moderates a free-flowing discussion with David Hillis, Harlan Krumholz, and Richard R. Schneider. Given regional variations, how do you think these patients should be treated? Tell us what you know here.

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August 26th, 2010

Getting Ready for the ESC

Larry Husten, PHD

The annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology starts this weekend in Stockholm, and CardioExchange will be there. Associate Editor Anju Nohria will be blogging from the meeting, and I’ll be covering the most important news stories. Here are a few of the most-anticipated, late-breaking clinical trials.

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August 25th, 2010

Studies Probe Cardiovascular Risks of Migraines

Larry Husten, PHD

Two new studies in BMJ provide important new details about the elusive relationship between migraines and cardiovascular disease. In the first study, researchers in Iceland analyzed data from 18,725 middle-aged men and women who were followed for a median of 25.9 years. Larus Gudmundsson and colleagues found that people with migraine with aura were at […]

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August 25th, 2010

Is There a Generation Gap in Cardiology?

Larry Husten, PHD, Harlan M. Krumholz, MD, SM, L. David Hillis, MD and Andrew M. Kates, MD

A brief posting in the Wall Street Journal Health Blog on the clash of generations in the medical workplace recently caught our attention. The Blog summarizes a commentary by Sharon Phelan in Obstetrics & Gynecology, which  posits that “different attitudes about work and life held by members of different generations can create tensions and clashes in the […]

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August 24th, 2010

Study Suggests Prognostic Power of Dyspnea in Acute Heart Failure

Larry Husten, PHD

Results of a study with the hormone relaxin suggest that a lack of ongoing dyspnea relief may be an important predictor of outcome. Marco Metra and fellow investigators in the Pre-RELAX-AHF study randomized 232 patients with acute heart failure to placebo or one of 4 doses of relaxin. Only 25% of all patients in the […]

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August 23rd, 2010

AHA Science Advisory Calls for More Research on CVD in Asian-Americans

Larry Husten, PHD

In a “Call to Action” contained in a new scientific statement, the American Heart Association says that more research is needed on cardiovascular disease in Asian-Americans. “Available research shows that subgroups of Asian-Americans are at increased risk of complications and death from cardiovascular disease; however, Asian-Americans are often studied as a group, which masks the differences […]

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August 20th, 2010

Door to Balloon (D2B) Time: The Wrong Performance Measure?

Richard A. Lange, MD, MBA

The authors of a recently published study evaluated the association between system delay (i.e., time from the patient’s first contact with the health care system to initiation of reperfusion) and outcome in STEMI patients transported by EMS and treated with primary PCI.  Some patients were triaged directly to a PCI center, whereas others were transported to their […]

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August 20th, 2010

A “Good” Heart…

John Mandrola, MD, FACC

John Mandrola, an electrophysiologist and avid cyclist, usually writes about cycling in the Wednesday posts to his blog, Dr. John. Here he examines how antagonism relates to carotid thickness. This Wednesday, it will be easy to combine cycling and medicine. When I saw this study that linked antagonistic personality traits and cardiovascular risk, it was […]

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