CardioExchange Archive

October 3rd, 2011

Guidelines for Managing Peripheral Artery Disease Updated

Larry Husten, PHD

The ACC and the AHA have released updated guidelines for managing peripheral artery disease (PAD). The document is available online in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and in Circulation. The new guidelines place a greater emphasis on tobacco cessation, requesting healthcare providers to consistently ask patients about their smoking status and to offer support to help them […]

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August 17th, 2011

Details of Updated U.K. Heart Failure Guidelines Raise Some Eyebrows

Larry Husten, PHD

Although the updated heart failure guidelines from the U.K.’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) are broadly consistent with similar guidelines from Europe and the U.S., outside experts are questioning several key details of the update. A summary of the new guidelines has been published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, along with […]

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August 4th, 2011

Easy Come, Easy Go? ESC to Review Dronedarone’s Role in AF Guidelines

Larry Husten, PHD

Less than a year after speeding into the European Society of Cardiology’s atrial fibrillation guidelines with a class 1 recommendation, the role of dronedarone (Multaq, Sanofi) in the treatment of AF will be reconsidered. “The ESC will produce a focused update of the AF Guidelines when the full results of PALLAS have been published and regulatory authorities […]

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July 15th, 2011

Panel: Why Don’t Cardiologists Eat Their OATs?

CardioExchange Editors, Staff

In 2006, the Occluded Artery Trial (OAT) showed no benefit of routine PCI in patients with persistently occluded infarct-related arteries that were identified at least one day after an MI. According to a recent study, led by Judith Hochman, OAT has had minimal impact on clinical practice. We asked Hochman and two other experts why […]

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July 12th, 2011

Pass (Up) the Guidelines, Please

Richard A. Lange, MD, MBA and L. David Hillis, MD

The Occluded Artery Trial (OAT) demonstrated no benefit of routine PCI in persistently occluded infarct-related arteries identified more than 24 hours after MI. These results were incorporated into the revised guidelines for STEMI, NSTEMI, and PCI (published in 2007 and 2008) as a class III recommendation (i.e., not indicated and inappropriate). The senior investigator for […]

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May 2nd, 2011

Standard Guidelines Compared with Individualized Guidelines

Larry Husten, PHD

Should patients be treated by standard guidelines, or should guidelines be individualized for patients? In a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, David Eddy and colleagues used data from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study to calculate and compare the expected benefit from hypertension treatment based on JNC 7 guidelines with the […]

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April 25th, 2011

ACC and AHA Publish Expert Consensus Document on Hypertension in the Elderly

Larry Husten, PHD

Although 64% of elderly men and 78% of elderly women have hypertension, this was not considered a significant clinical problem until 2008, when the Hypertension in the Very Elderly Trial (HYVET) trial demonstrated the substantial benefits of reducing blood pressure in these patients. Largely in response to HYVET, the ACC and the AHA have published […]

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April 22nd, 2011

Diet and Cardiovascular Health: What’s the Bottom Line?

Eric Rimm, ScD

CardioExchange welcomes Dr. Eric Rimm, Sc.D., the director of the Program in Cardiovascular Epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health and a member of the USDA’s 2010 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. Dr. Rimm answers Associate Editor Susan Cheng’s questions about the DGAC’s 2010 report. We welcome you to offer your own questions and opinions. Background: The 2010 USDA […]

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April 10th, 2011

Questioning the Guidelines

scottwright109 and Hansie Mathelier, MD

CardioExchange welcomes R Scott Wright, the chair of the recently published focused update of the ACC/AHA Unstable Angina/NSTEMI guidelines. Dr. Wright generously agreed to answer questions about the guidelines posed by the CardioExchange editors. CardioExchange Editors: For clinicians reading this guidelines update, what would you highlight as the most important new or revised recommendations that should […]

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March 29th, 2011

Conflicts of Interest in Cardiovascular Guidelines

Larry Husten, PHD

More than half of authors and reviewers of cardiovascular clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) have at least one conflict of interest (COI), according to a study in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Todd Mendelson and colleagues analyzed the 17 most recent ACC/AHA CPGs through 2008 and found that 56% of the participants reported a COI. The […]

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