CardioExchange Archive

May 28th, 2010

• Enrollment in Eplerenone Trial Stopped Early
• Aspirin Recommended for Primary Prevention in High-Risk Diabetics
• TCD Stratifies Risk in Asymptomatic C

Larry Husten, PHD

Enrollment in Eplerenone Trial Stopped Early: The Data Safety Monitoring Committee has ended enrollment in the EMPHASIS-HF trial after determining that the trial had met its primary efficacy endpoint. According to a press release issued by Pfizer, the trial was testing eplerenone versus placebo in patients with established mild-to-moderate heart failure who were also at […]

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May 27th, 2010

The Tests Say Intervene, but the Patient Feels Fine

Anju Nohria, MD and James Fang, MD

A 58-year-old asymptomatic man with hypertension and hyperlipidemia was noted to have an abnormal electrocardiogram during his routine annual physical examination. His primary care physician ordered a treadmill stress test. The patient exercised for 6 minutes and 39 seconds of a standard Bruce protocol, achieving 8.1 METs. He stopped because of dyspnea. His heart rate […]

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May 27th, 2010

Should We Aim For FAME?

L. David Hillis, MD

In patients with multivessel CAD suitable for PCI, what’s the best way to determine whether a stent should be placed? Researchers in the Fractional Flow Reserve Versus Angiography for Multivessel Evaluation (FAME) study compared outcomes when PCI with drug-eluting stents was guided by angiography alone versus angiography plus measurement of FFR. At 2 years of follow-up, routine measurement of […]

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May 26th, 2010

Do Hundreds of Left Atrial Burns Reduce Dementia Risk?

John Mandrola, MD, FACC

CardioExchange welcomes this guest post reprinted with permission from Dr. John M, a blog by private-practice electrophysiologist and CardioExchange member, Dr. John Mandrola. “No data are better than bad data…If you can’t see it, don’t call it,” Dr Feigenbaum often admonished us young fellows during the old Thursday Echo conference at IU. Calling more than is actually […]

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May 26th, 2010

• Endarterectomy or Stenting?
• Growing FAME at 2 Years

Larry Husten, PHD

Endarterectomy or Stenting? The results of the Carotid Revascularization Endarterectomy Versus Stenting Trial (CREST), which compared carotid endarterectomy to carotid stenting in 2,502 patients at centers in the U.S. and Canada, have now been published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The CREST investigators report that the 30-day rate of stroke, death, and MI […]

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May 25th, 2010

• Hypertension — Good News and Bad
• Breaking Press Releases from EuroPCR

Larry Husten, PHD

Hypertension — Good News and Bad: New results from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), published in JAMA, show that although hypertension control improved dramatically from1988-1994 to 2007-2008 (from 27.3%  to 50.1%), the overall rate of hypertension increased (from 23.9% to 28.5% ) over the same period. Of note, hypertension control was lower in […]

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May 24th, 2010

• Beta-Blockers May Benefit COPD Patients
• Evaluation of ALLHAT ‘Academic Detailing’

Larry Husten, PHD

Beta-Blockers May Benefit COPD Patients: Although many physicians prefer not to prescribe beta-blockers to patients with COPD, a new observational study from the Netherlands suggests that COPD patients — even those who don’t have overt cardiovascular disease — may benefit from beta-blocker therapy. In their paper in Archives of Internal Medicine, Rutten and colleagues analyzed records of […]

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May 21st, 2010

The Perils of Multitasking

James De Lemos, MD

How often do you find yourself trying to do so many things at once that you either make, or come close to making, a mistake in patient care? In an article recently published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, nurses who were interrupted during medication administration were more likely to make a medication error. Is […]

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May 21st, 2010

Statins in the Real World: The Good and the Bad

Larry Husten, PHD

To ascertain unintended effects of statins, researchers in the U.K. analyzed data from more than 2 million patients, including 200,000 patients taking statins for the first time. In a paper in BMJ, the researchers found a reduced risk for esophageal cancer among statin users, and an increased risk for moderate or serious liver dysfunction, acute renal […]

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May 20th, 2010

Endovascular Repair of AAA: DREAM and Reality

Larry Husten, PHD

Confirming the recent finding of the EVAR 1 trial, the DREAM Study Group reports the results of 351 patients who underwent open or endovascular repair of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA). The report appears in the New England Journal of Medicine along with the print publication of the EVAR 1 and 2 trials. The six-year survival […]

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