CardioExchange Archive

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 23rd, 2012

FDA Grants MI Indication for Drug-Eluting Stents

Larry Husten, PHD

Boston Scientific announced on Wednesday that the FDA had approved the use of its Ion and Taxus Liberte paclitaxel-eluting stents for the treatment of patients with MI. These are the first drug-eluting stents to receive a specific indication for MI. The new indication is based on data from the Taxus clinical program and the HORIZONS-AMI trial. […]

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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 have […]

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February 14th, 2012

Meta-Analysis: Air Pollutants Raise Short-Term Risk for MI

Larry Husten, PHD

Air pollution significantly raises the short-term, 7-day risk for MI, according to a new meta-analysis published in JAMA. Hazrije Mustafic and colleagues analyzed data from 34 studies and found a significant increase in the relative risk (RR) for MI with all the main air pollutants except ozone: carbon monoxide: RR 1.048, CI 1.026-1.070 nitrogen dioxide: 1.011, 1.006-1.016 […]

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February 6th, 2012

Selections from Richard Lehman’s Weekly Review: Week of February 6th

Richard Lehman, BM, BCh, MRCGP

This week’s topics include the U.S. obesity plateau, the pros and cons of state-of-the-art CMR, and the MI mortality decline in European countries.

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January 26th, 2012

Big Drop in MI Incidence and Fatality in England

Larry Husten, PHD

Since 2002, the incidence of acute MI in England has dropped by one-half and the case fatality rate by one-third, according to a new study published in BMJ. The overall decline in deaths from MI is about equally due to improvements in the prevention of MI and the treatment of MI. Kate Smolina and colleagues analyzed data from […]

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December 27th, 2011

Possible Role for New Troponin Test to Diagnose MI

Larry Husten, PHD

A new study from Germany provides evidence that a new high-sensitive troponin I (hsTnI) assay may improve and speed the early diagnosis of acute MI. In an article published in JAMA, Till Keller and colleagues report on 1818 patients with acute chest pain in whom numerous biomarker tests were conducted at admission and at 3 and […]

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November 30th, 2011

Should FedEx Be in Charge of Primary PCI?

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

Federal Express built its business on being a leader in transportation and delivering on time.  Perhaps the results of primary PCI in the U.S. would be better if FedEx ran the program. In patients with acute MI who must be transferred to another hospital for primary PCI, experts agree that the door-in to door-out (so called, […]

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November 15th, 2011

MI FREE: A Free Lunch for Patients and Insurers Alike?

John Ryan, MD

Removing copays increased adherence, decreased events, and saved the sponsoring insurance company a tidy sum. So are the issues with insurance-sponsored studies different from those with pharmaceutical-sponsored ones?

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August 30th, 2011

Intra-Aortic Balloon Counterpulsation (IABP) Burned to a CRISP

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

Intra-aortic balloon counterpulsation (IABP) is a bust in AMI patients without cardiogenic shock, according to the Counterpulsation to Reduce Infarct Size Pre-PCI Acute Myocardial Infarction (CRISP AMI) trial. This open-label, 30-center, randomized, controlled trial was performed to determine if a routine strategy of IABP before primary PCI (and continued for at least 12 hours afterward) would […]

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