CardioExchange Archive

February 28th, 2012

FDA Revises the Safety Labeling of Statins

Larry Husten, PHD

The FDA today announced important new changes to the safety language on the labels of statins: Routine periodic monitoring of liver enzymes is no longer recommended. Serious liver injury associated with statins is “rare and unpredictable in individual patients” and “routine periodic monitoring of liver enzymes does not appear to be effective in detecting or preventing this rare […]

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February 28th, 2012

FDA Grants Priority Review to Rivaroxaban (Xarelto) for ACS Patients

Larry Husten, PHD

The FDA has granted a priority review for the supplemental new drug application (sNDA) for rivaroxaban (Xarelto) in combination with standard therapy to reduce the risk for cardiovascular events in acute coronary syndrome (ACS) patients. The news was announced by Bayer and Johnson & Johnson. The FDA will now be required to respond within 6 months, instead of […]

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February 27th, 2012

Meta-Analysis Finds No Advantages for PCI Over Medical Therapy in Stable Patients

Larry Husten, PHD

Patients with stable coronary artery disease (CAD) today do no better with stents than with medical therapy, according to a new meta-analysis published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Kathleen Stergiopoulos and David Brown identified 8 trials with 7,229 patients comparing stents to medical therapy in which stents were used in the majority of PCI cases. ”By limiting the […]

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February 27th, 2012

Selections from Richard Lehman’s Weekly Review: Week of February 27th

Richard Lehman, BM, BCh, MRCGP

This week’s topics include a study on chest pain (or lack thereof) in patients with MI and a trial of cardiovascular family history taking.

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February 24th, 2012

A Call for Help to Reduce Readmissions

Harlan M. Krumholz, MD, SM

The national focus on readmissions (e.g., Partnership for Patients) has yet to yield improvements in performance. Many clinicians and hospitals are seeking help in their efforts to reduce readmission rates. Hospital to Home, a national quality improvement initiative led by the American College of Cardiology and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, has posted a list […]

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February 23rd, 2012

Reality Check: Do 42% of Women with AMI Present Without Chest Pain?

Harlan M. Krumholz, MD, SM

I am reading the new paper from NRMI in JAMA on the association of age and sex with AMI symptom presentation and am struck by the finding that 35% of the patients did not present with chest pain. This percentage is higher than I have seen elsewhere. In our recent studies, spanning many sites, we […]

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February 23rd, 2012

FDA Advisory Panel Gives Green Light to Qnexa Diet Pill

Larry Husten, PHD

Breaking a long streak of bad news for diet drugs, an FDA advisory panel on Wednesday voted 20-2 in favor of approval for Qnexa, the combination of  phentermine and topiramate under development by Vivus. Panel members strongly suggested that Vivus be required to perform a cardiovascular outcomes trial, though it was not immediately clear if this […]

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February 22nd, 2012

Part 5: Clashing Views of Appropriate Use Criteria for PCI

Paul S. Chan, MD, MS, Steve Marso, MD, John Spertus, MD, MPH and J Aaron Grantham, MD, FACC

In a recent Viewpoint in JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions, Marso and colleagues expressed grave reservations about the application of appropriate use criteria for PCI in a controversial study published last year in JAMA by Chan and colleagues, which found that only half of PCIs performed for nonacute indications were classified as appropriate. Interventional cardiology editors Rick Lange and David Hillis asked CardioExchange members for their […]

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February 21st, 2012

Selections from Richard Lehman’s Weekly Review: Week of February 20th

Richard Lehman, BM, BCh, MRCGP

This week’s topics include LVH, pollution and MI, the genetics of cardiomyopathy, atrial fibrillation, and aspirin for primary prevention.

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February 21st, 2012

More Rigorous Assessment of Family History Improves CV Risk Determination

Larry Husten, PHD

Although family history has long been recognized as an important cardiovascular risk factor, usual methods to assess risk have not incorporated family history in a rigorous manner. A new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine finds that systematically collecting family history in a primary practice setting significantly increases the identification of high-risk people. Nadeem Qureshi […]

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