CardioExchange Archive

August 28th, 2012

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

Richard Lehman, BM, BCh, MRCGP

This week’s topics include studies on biolimus-eluting stents vs. bare-metal stents, risk markers to improve CV event prediction, common carotid intima-media thickness and CV risk prediction, aspirin with alteplase for acute ischemic stroke, and lipid-lowering therapy (and its benefits and harms) in patients with CKD.

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August 24th, 2012

Is Bad News About Fibrates Getting Buried?

Harlan M. Krumholz, MD, SM

A meta-analysis about lipid-modifying therapies and risk for pancreatitis focuses on a benefit of statins but de-emphasizes potential harm from fibrates.

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August 13th, 2012

Selections from Richard Lehman’s Literature Review: August 13th

Richard Lehman, BM, BCh, MRCGP

This week’s topics include using existing data for new research; normal weight, diabetes, and non-CVD death; cholesterol levels in U.S. kids; statins and diabetes; HDL-C and MI protection; statin treatment; hypertension treatment; clopidogrel and PPIs; and an analysis behind the “innovation crisis” of the pharmaceutical industry.

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August 9th, 2012

Reports from JUPITER and Taiwan: Benefits of Statins Outweigh Risk for Diabetes

Larry Husten, PHD

Two new papers provide further evidence that statin use is associated with an increased risk for diabetes, but both studies also find that the benefits of statins still outweigh the risks. In one report, published in the Lancet, Paul Ridker and colleagues analyze data from the JUPITER trial, which compared rosuvastatin to placebo in a primary-prevention population. Among the 17,603 […]

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July 12th, 2012

Selections from Richard Lehman’s Literature Review: July 12th

Richard Lehman, BM, BCh, MRCGP

This week’s topics include sex differences in the protective effect of statins, an action measure to lower BP among diabetics, a prediction tool for initial survivors of in-hospital cardiac arrest, the diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary embolism, an intervention to prevent medication errors after hospital discharge, and rehospitalization after acute MI.

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June 25th, 2012

Are Statins Equally Effective in Women and in Men?

Larry Husten, PHD

Jose Gutierrez and colleagues performed a sex-based meta-analysis, seeking to determine if statins yield a similar protective effect on both men and women in preventing recurrent cardiovascular events. In a paper published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, they report the results of their meta-analysis of 11 secondary prevention, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trials, which included 43, […]

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June 5th, 2012

Data, Drugs, and Deception – A True Story

D H Newman, MD

A skeptic looks at a recent meta-analysis of trials of statins for primary prevention and concludes that the authors cleverly buried a statistical deception. The study may have answered an interesting question, but it did not answer a much different and bigger question.

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May 21st, 2012

Selections from Richard Lehman’s Literature Review: Week of May 21st

Richard Lehman, BM, BCh, MRCGP

This week’s topics include warfarin vs. aspirin for stroke prevention in HF, CVD risks and azithromycin, coffee’s benefits, the old news that statins work, the question of HDL-C, abdominal aortic aneurysm, omega-3 fatty acid supplements, and Abbott’s methods for staying ahead with fenofibrate prescriptions.

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May 17th, 2012

Large Meta-Analysis Finds Statins Effective in Low-Risk Patients

Larry Husten, PHD

A very large meta-analysis provides strong evidence that the relative reduction in vascular risk with statins is at least as great in low-risk patients as in high-risk patients. The finding, write the authors, provides evidence that expansion of guidelines to lower-risk populations should be considered. In their paper in the Lancet, the Cholesterol Treatment Trialists’ (CTT) Collaborators […]

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April 18th, 2012

Selections from Richard Lehman’s Literature Review: Week of April 16th

Richard Lehman, BM, BCh, MRCGP

This week’s topics include an “awful question” about statin therapy, coronary computed tomographic angiography in the ED, vorapraxar for secondary prevention, and stent wars.

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