CardioExchange Archive

January 28th, 2011

Does CRP Level Modify the Benefit of Statins? Paul Ridker Reacts to New Data

Paul Ridker, MD, MPH

CardioExchange welcomes Paul M. Ridker, a leading researcher on the value of C-reactive protein (CRP) concentration as a prognostic marker of cardiovascular risk, to respond to the latest data on CRP and statin therapy from the Heart Protection Study (HPS). The New HPS Findings on CRP: The HPS investigators sought to determine whether statin therapy might […]

---

January 27th, 2011

HPS Results Suggest Baseline CRP Doesn’t Predict Statin Efficacy

Larry Husten, PHD

Analysis of data from the Heart Protection Study (HPS) indicates that a CRP measurement obtained at baseline does not predict the effect of statin therapy. In a paper published online in the Lancet, the HPS Collaborative Group report the results of the more than 20,000-patient HPS study based on CRP category at baseline. As previously reported, […]

---

January 25th, 2011

New Study Finds Hydrochlorothiazide Inferior To All Other BP Drugs

Larry Husten, PHD

At the dosages most often used, hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ), the most widely used antihypertensive agent in the world, is “consistently inferior” to all other drugs, according to a new meta-analysis published in JACC. Franz Messerli and colleagues performed a systematic review of studies that compared HCTZ to other drugs using 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring and found […]

---

January 19th, 2011

Review Raises Questions About Statins for Primary Prevention

Larry Husten, PHD

A Cochrane Review raises troubling questions about the evidence base supporting the use of statins for primary prevention. The Cochrane reviewers analyzed 14 randomized trials including 34,272 participants and found that statins were associated with significant reductions in overall mortality, fatal and nonfatal CV endpoints, and revascularization procedures. The reviewers found no evidence of harm. However, […]

---

January 14th, 2011

Combination Therapy Beats Single Therapy As Initial Antihypertensive Therapy

Larry Husten, PHD

In the ACCELERATE (Aliskiren and the calcium channel blocker amlopdipine combination as an initial treatment strategy for hypertension control) trial, more than 1200 patients with early essential hypertension were randomized to either aliskiren, amlodipine, or the combination of the two drugs for 4 months. The results, which have been published online in the Lancet, showed […]

---

January 12th, 2011

Researchers Shed New Light on HDL Cholesterol

Larry Husten, PHD

Two papers published in the New England Journal of Medicine shed new light on the important but often mysterious role of HDL cholesterol in cardiovascular disease. In the first paper, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania studied 1,000 healthy volunteers and patients with coronary artery disease and observed a strong inverse relationship between cholesterol efflux from […]

---

December 15th, 2010

Heart Disease and Stroke in 2011: Mortality Continues to Decline, but Overall Burden Remains High

Larry Husten, PHD

From 1997 to 2007, the death rate from heart disease declined 27.8% and the death rate from stroke declined 44.8%. But inpatient cardiovascular operations and procedures increased during the same period by 27%, and heart disease and stroke cost $286 billion in 2007, more than any other diagnostic group. These are some of the most […]

---

December 14th, 2010

Study Finds Inverse Correlation Between HDL and Alzheimer’s

Larry Husten, PHD

High levels of HDL are linked to a lower risk for Alzheimer’s disease (AD), according to a new study published in Archives of Neurology. Researchers at Columbia University followed 1,130 Medicare recipients in New York City with no cognitive impairment. After 4,469 person-years of follow-up, they identified 101 cases of AD (89 probable and 12 […]

---

December 8th, 2010

Third Time’s the Charm: FDA Panel Finally Backs an Obesity Pill

Larry Husten, PHD

Following rejections earlier this year of two previous anti-obesity drugs, the FDA’s Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs advisory committee has recommended approval for Contrave, the combination of sustained-release formulations of naltrexone and buproprion from Orexigen Therapeutics. The committee voted 13-7 in favor of the drug, saying that the benefits of Contrave outweighed its risks. The committee also […]

---

December 6th, 2010

Meta-Analysis: Daily Aspirin Reduces Cancer Deaths

Larry Husten, PHD

A new analysis finds that long-term aspirin use reduces deaths from several common cancers. Previous studies had only shown a convincing benefit in colorectal cancer. In the new meta-analysis, appearing online in the Lancet, Peter Rothwell and colleagues combined data from more than 25,000 patients enrolled in long-term randomized trials of aspirin. They showed that […]

---