CardioExchange Archive

December 2nd, 2010

AHA Releases Updated Stroke Prevention Guidelines

Larry Husten, PHD

Here’s the good news, according to Larry Goldstein, the chairman of the statement writing committee for the revised American Heart Association/American Stroke Association Guidelines for the Primary Prevention of Stroke: “Between 1999 and 2006, there’s been over a 30 percent reduction in stroke death rates in the United States and we think the majority of the […]

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December 1st, 2010

Study Links Tricyclic Antidepressants to Increased Risk for CVD

Larry Husten, PHD

A survey from Scotland has found an increased risk for cardiovascular disease in people taking tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs). In an article in the European Heart Journal, the researchers write that they failed to find any increased risk with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Nearly 15,000 Scottish adults without known histories of CVD were followed for 8 […]

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November 30th, 2010

New Performance Measures for Peripheral Artery Disease Issued

Larry Husten, PHD

Performance measures to improve the diagnosis and treatment of peripheral artery disease (PAD) in adults have been published for the first time. The document was produced by the ACC, the AHA, and several other medical organizations. Here are a few key details of the performance measures: Measuring the ankle brachial index (ABI) is an easy and […]

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November 29th, 2010

Study Finds No Link Between Cancer and Antihypertensives, Except for ARB-ACE Inhibitor Combo

Larry Husten, PHD

A new meta-analysis has found no evidence of a large cancer risk for most common antihypertensive agents, but did find strong evidence, largely based on one trial, for at least a 10% increase in cancer risk with the rarely used angiotensin-converting-enzyme (ACE) inhibitor and angiotensin-receptor blocker (ARB) combination. In a paper in the Lancet Oncology, […]

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November 23rd, 2010

Greek Study Offers Reassurance About Statin Usage in Patients with Abnormal Liver Tests

Larry Husten, PHD

In the GREACE (Greek Atorvastatin and Coronary Heart Disease Evaluation) study, 1600 patients with coronary heart disease were randomized to atorvastatin or usual care; of these, 437 had moderately abnormal liver tests at baseline, suggesting non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). In a post-hoc analysis of this subset of patients, published in the Lancet, the GREACE Study […]

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November 23rd, 2010

How Should We DEFINE Anacetrapib’s Success?

Philip John Barter, MD, PhD and Christopher Paul Cannon, MD

CardioExchange welcomes Philip Barter and Christopher P. Cannon, two of the investigators for the DEFINE trial, which was recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Here, they answer questions posed by CardioExchange’s editors. First, some background about the trial: In DEFINE, 1623 patients with or at high risk for coronary disease were randomized to receive […]

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November 22nd, 2010

SHARP: A Tale of Two Press Releases

Larry Husten, PHD

Two press releases were issued about the SHARP trial : one from Merck, the much-maligned and criticized manufacturer of Vytorin (the combination of ezetimibe and simvastatin), and one from the group running the trial, the highly-respected Clinical Trials Service Unit (CTSU) at Oxford. Here’s the surprise: compared to the Oxford press release, the Merck release is a paragon, […]

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November 22nd, 2010

Treating Resistant Hypertension: Singe – Don’t Stent – The Renal Artery

Richard A. Lange, MD, MBA

For years, interventional cardiologists (and radiologists) have been stenting renal arterial stenoses in patients with resistant hypertension, despite evidence that doing so does not lower blood pressure.  It appears we had the right organ (the kidney), but we’ve been doing the wrong procedure. We should have been delivering a singe, not a stent. Advances in endovascular catheter technology […]

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November 20th, 2010

SHARP Shows Benefit for Vytorin in Chronic Kidney Disease

Larry Husten, PHD

The long-awaited SHARP study has turned up positive results for Vytorin (ezetimibe and simvastatin) in a population of patients with chronic kidney disease. Results of SHARP (Study of Heart and Renal Protection) were presented on Saturday at the American Society of Nephrology meeting in Denver and were scheduled to be posted online on the trial’s website. SHARP compared […]

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November 19th, 2010

Will This Be the HDL Decade? REVEAL Revealed, Mixed Results for Apo-A1

Larry Husten, PHD

For a long time, HDL has been called the “good cholesterol.” Are we now entering the HDL decade? Two HDL-related trials were presented Wednesday at the AHA, and an array of additional trials are planned or underway, prompting the lead investigator of one of those trials, Chris Cannon, to speculate that this decade may be […]

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