CardioExchange Archive

March 9th, 2015

How Appropriate Are Appropriate Use Criteria for Coronary Angiography?

Harindra C Wijeysundera, MD, PhD

Harindra C. Wijeysundera discusses his research group’s use of registry data from Ontario, Canada, in applying the 2012 appropriate use criteria for diagnostic catheterization.

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March 9th, 2015

Appropriate Use Criteria for Diagnostic Catheterization are Weak

Larry Husten, PHD

Appropriate use criteria (AUC) are designed to help make sure that medical procedures and interventions are performed in patients most likely to benefit and, in turn, are not performed on people unlikely to gain benefit. Now a new study published in Annals of Internal Medicine suggests that the AUC for one very widely performed procedure, diagnostic cardiac […]

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October 20th, 2014

Are We Conducting Too Many Cardiac Stress Tests with Imaging?

Joseph A. Ladapo, MD, PhD

Joseph A. Ladapo discusses his study of the use (and overuse) of cardiac stress testing in the United States.

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October 9th, 2013

Defining the “Appropriate Use” of Transthoracic Echo

Susan A Matulevicius, MD, MSCS

Susan Matulevicius discusses her study group’s analysis of the use of transthoracic echocardiography at a tertiary-care academic medical center.

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September 18th, 2013

Disparities in Rate of Inappropriate Use of PCI

Paul S. Chan, MD, MS

Paul Chan answers questions about his new study in JACC that found a surprising pattern of both overuse and underuse of PCI among different populations in the US.

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September 18th, 2013

Both Overuse and Underuse Explain Disparities in Coronary Revascularization

Larry Husten, PHD

A new study finds that groups who have often been found to receive less medical care — non-whites, women, and people without private insurance or who are from urban and rural areas — are less likely to undergo coronary revascularization. But the same study finds that this disparity may be in no small part due to […]

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July 22nd, 2013

Studies Raise Questions About Echocardiography

Larry Husten, PHD

Echocardiography is a safe, noninvasive tool to image the heart without the use of radiation. For this reason it has become the most frequently used method to look at the heart for a wide variety of medical indications. Now two new studies suggest that, despite its popularity, transthoracic echocardiography is often not beneficial. One study […]

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April 18th, 2013

Educating House Staff on Appropriate Use of Echoes

Rory B Weiner, MD, Rajan Sacha Bhatia, MD/MBA and John Ryan, MD

A relatively simple educational intervention reduces the ordering of inappropriate echoes

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March 1st, 2013

ACC and HRS Release Appropriate Use Criteria for ICDs and CRTs

Larry Husten, PHD

The American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the Heart Rhythm Society (HRS) today published appropriate use criteria for implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) and cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT). The document offers an expert consensus on the appropriateness of  369 separate real-life clinical scenarios in six areas: ICDs for secondary prevention, ICDs for primary prevention, comorbidities, CRT devices, generator replacement, […]

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January 25th, 2013

Appropriate Use or Defensive Medicine?

Sarah C. Hull, MD, MBE (Master of Bioethics)

Is the practice of defensive medicine overriding the implementation of appropriate use to the detriment of economics, patient care, and medical education?

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