CardioExchange Archive

June 10th, 2010

Bleeding Avoidance Strategies in PCI

Steve Marso, MD

CardioExchange welcomes Dr. Steven Marso to answer questions about his recent paper in JAMA, which analyzed data from 1.5 million PCI patients from hospitals enrolled in the National Cardiovascular Data Registry (NCDR) to examine the use of bleeding-avoidance strategies. Manual compression was used in 35% of cases, vascular closure devices (VCDs) in 24%, bivalirudin in […]

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June 9th, 2010

• Decline in MIs Observed Over Past Decade
• Smoke-Free Legislation Reduces MI Admissions in England

Larry Husten, PHD

Decline in MIs Observed Over Past Decade: Yeh and colleagues reviewed data from 46,000 hospitalizations for MI among more than 3 million people enrolled in the Kaiser Permanente Northern California system. In their paper in the New England Journal of Medicine, they report that from 1999 to 2008 the rate of MI decreased by 24%, […]

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June 8th, 2010

Danish Study Sheds Light on Cardiovascular Risk of NSAIDs

Larry Husten, PHD

Danish Study Sheds Light on Cardiovascular Risk of NSAIDs: The cardiovascular safety of NSAIDs has been the subject of intense controversy. A new study from Denmark, appearing in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, may help clarify the cardiovascular risk of specific NSAIDs. Using national health and pharmacy databases, the Danish investigators identified more than 1 […]

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June 7th, 2010

Allopurinol May Be Beneficial in Stable Angina

Larry Husten, PHD

Allopurinol May Be Beneficial in Stable Angina: In addition to its well established role in treating gout, allopurinol may turn out to have beneficial effects in patients with chronic stable angina, according to a new study published online in the Lancet. In a double-blind, randomized, crossover trial, Awsan Noman and colleagues compared allopurinol with placebo […]

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June 4th, 2010

Composite Endpoints and the CREST Trial

davidrind

CardioExchange welcomes this guest post reprinted with permission from Dr. David Rind, an academic primary care physician and medical editor in Boston. This piece originally appeared on his blog, Evidence in Medicine. For more on the CREST trial, see the NEJM article and editorial, the Journal Watch summary by Dr. Howard Herrmann, and an Interventional Cardiology blog by Dr. […]

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June 4th, 2010

Carotid  Stenosis: Stent, Remove or Don’t Touch?

Richard A. Lange, MD, MBA

The Carotid Revascularization Endarterectomy vs. Stenting Trial (CREST) compared carotid stenting with endarterectomy in patients with symptomatic or asymptomatic carotid stenoses. The risk of the composite primary outcome — stroke, MI, or death — was similar for both treatments over the 2.5 years of follow-up. What’s the nitty gritty? Periprocedural stroke was more likely after […]

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June 3rd, 2010

• CANOE Paddles Into the Avandia Storm
• Ticagrelor NDA Scheduled for July FDA Panel

Larry Husten, PHD

CANOE Paddles Into the Avandia Storm: Rosiglitazone is effective in preventing progression to diabetes, but very public concerns have been raised about its cardiovascular safety. Investigators in Canada sought to assess the efficacy of a low-dose regimen, in the hopes that adverse effects would be reduced. The CANOE (CAnadian Normoglycemia Outcomes Evaluation) trial randomized 207 patients with […]

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June 3rd, 2010

What are the Dangers of Shorter Hospital Stays for HF Patients?

Héctor Bueno, MD, PhD

CardioExchange welcomes Dr. Héctor Bueno to answer questions about his recent paper in JAMA, which found that shorter hospital stays for heart-failure patients have resulted in fewer deaths in the hospital, but at the cost of more readmissions, leading researchers to speculate that “because length of stay has substantially decreased, improvement is less than what might […]

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June 2nd, 2010

• Heart Failure Monitoring Finds a CHAMPION
• Oxygen After Cardiac Arrest: More May Not Be Better

Larry Husten, PHD

Heart Failure Monitoring Finds a CHAMPION: Results of the phase III CHAMPION (CardioMEMS Heart Sensor Allows Monitoring of Pressure to Improve Outcomes in NYHA Class III Heart Failure Patients) Trial were presented by William Abraham at the Heart Failure Congress 2010 earlier this week in Berlin, Germany. Some 550 NYHA Class III HF patients were randomized to […]

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June 1st, 2010

• Shorter Hospital Stays Not Necessarily Better
• Shorter Delays to Reperfusion Are Better
• Better Use of Bleeding Avoidance Strategies in PCI

Larry Husten, PHD

Shorter Hospital Stays Not Necessarily Better: Shorter hospital stays for heart failure patients have resulted in fewer deaths in the hospital, but at the cost of more readmissions, leading researchers to speculate that “because length of stay has substantially decreased, improvement is less than what might be suggested by in-hospital mortality.” Writing in JAMA, Hector […]

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