CardioExchange Archive

August 18th, 2014

Advice on Implementing the New Cholesterol Guidelines

Sidney C. Smith, MD

CardioExchange’s Harlan M. Krumholz interviews Sidney C. Smith, coauthor of a new article, published in JACC, that reviews the major findings and recommendations of the 2013 cholesterol guidelines, as well as the recommendations’ implications for risk assessment, LDL lowering, and statin use. Krumholz: How have the new guidelines changed your practice?  Smith: The new focus on statins, […]

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August 4th, 2014

Review Panel Exonerates The BMJ in Statin Kerfuffle

Larry Husten, PHD

An independent review panel has rejected a demand by a prominent researcher that The BMJ retract two controversial articles. The report largely exonerates the journal’s editors from any wrongdoing. As previously reported, Rory Collins, a prominent researcher and head of the Cholesterol Treatment Trialists’ (CTT) Collaboration, had demanded that The BMJ retract two articles that were highly critical of statins. Although The BMJ issued […]

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August 1st, 2014

Noncardiac Surgery Guidelines Updated

Larry Husten, PHD

The reliability of current guidelines regarding perioperative evaluation and treatment of people undergoing noncardiac surgery has been seriously questioned because of a scandal discrediting Don Poldermans, a Dutch researcher widely published in the field. To address the current uncertainty, U.S. and European medical societies today released updated versions of these guidelines. The European guideline can be […]

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July 28th, 2014

Selections from Richard Lehman’s Literature Review: July 28th

Richard Lehman, BM, BCh, MRCGP

This week’s topics include a comparison of catheter-directed thrombolysis plus anticoagulation and anticoagulation alone to treat DVT, several papers on dabigatran and bleeding risk, and more.

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July 7th, 2014

Statins Are a Mess: We Need Better Data, and Shared Decision Making

Ben Goldacre, MB, BS, BA, MA, MBBS, MSc

The following open letter was originally published on The British Medical Journal‘s editorial page regarding the adverse effects of statins for patients with low risk of cardiovascular disease. It was written in response to an analysis by Abramson et al, and more information on the subject can be found here. I have two observations to […]

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June 30th, 2014

Selections from Richard Lehman’s Literature Review: June 30th

Richard Lehman, BM, BCh, MRCGP

This week’s topics include atrial fibrillation and cryptogenic stroke, higher potency statins and the risk for new diabetes, and more.

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June 16th, 2014

Selections from Richard Lehman’s Literature Review: June 16th

Richard Lehman, BM, BCh, MRCGP

This week’s topics include statins and physical activity in older men, transitional care interventions to prevent heart-failure readmissions, and more.

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June 16th, 2014

Case: Smoking-Related CV Risk and the Need for Statin Therapy in a Former Smoker Who Quit Long Ago

Jay D Shah, MD, Neil J Stone, MD and James Fang, MD

Jay Shah presents the case of a 66-year-old woman who quit smoking 15 years ago and is seen for a cardiovascular risk assessment.

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May 27th, 2014

Selections from Richard Lehman’s Literature Review: May 27th

Richard Lehman, BM, BCh, MRCGP

This week’s topics include mortality trends in patients with diabetes, cardiovascular remodeling in CAD and HF, and more.

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May 14th, 2014

BMJ Articles Critical of Statins Provoke Kerfuffle

Larry Husten, PHD

The authors of two BMJ articles have withdrawn statements about the adverse effects of statins. The papers inaccurately cite an earlier publication and therefore may overstate the incidence of adverse effects. As a result, the two papers have drawn much criticism and set off a kerfuffle involving the editor of BMJ and a highly prominent British trialist who is demanding a […]

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