June 21st, 2010
Coffee and Tea: Go Ahead and Have a Cup
Larry Husten, PHD
Coffee and Tea: Go Ahead and Have a Cup: Moderate consumption of both coffee and tea was associated with a reduction in coronary heart disease (CHD) in a Dutch study that followed 37,514 people for 13 years. The paper appears in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology. Compared to people who drank less than 1 cup of […]
June 18th, 2010
• PFO Closure Trial Misses Primary Endpoint
• New Concerns Raised Over Insulin Glargine and Taspoglutide
• INTERSTROKE: Accounting for Stroke
Larry Husten, PHD
PFO Closure Trial Misses Primary Endpoint: The CLOSURE 1 trial, which was designed to test the efficacy of PFO closure in preventing recurrent strokes and TIAs, failed to meet its primary endpoint, according to a press release from the trial’s sponsor, NMT Medical. The primary endpoint of the trial, which was designed to compare PFO closure to medical […]
June 18th, 2010
Is Optimal Medical Therapy Really Optimal?
Nihar Desai, MD, MPH and James Fang, MD
A 61-year-old man with a past medical history significant for hypertension, hyperlipidemia (LDL-C, 145 mg/dL; HDL-C, 38 mg/dL), and type 2 diabetes (HbA1c, 8.2) presents to his primary care physician after several months of exertional chest tightness that is associated with dyspnea and relieved by rest. His current medications include lisinopril at 20 mg/day, metoprolol succinate […]
June 16th, 2010
• Industry Employees May Not Be Allowed to Speak at the AHA
• New-Generation Stent Tested
• BMS Versus DES for STEMI
Larry Husten, PHD
Industry Employees May Not Be Allowed to Speak at the AHA: Industry employees may no longer be allowed to speak at the AHA scientific sessions and other CME-accredited events, according to an article by John Fauber in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The ruling by the the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) is being appealed by the AHA. The […]
June 15th, 2010
HDL and Cancer: Study Finds Strong Inverse Relationship
Larry Husten, PHD
Jaffri and colleagues found a significant inverse association between HDL and the risk of cancer in a meta-analysis of 24 trials that included more than 600,000 person-years of follow-up and 8,185 cancer cases. In their paper in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, they report a dose-response relationship in which each 10-mg/dl increase in HDL was associated […]
June 14th, 2010
ARBs Under Fire: Perspectives from Nissen, Yancy, and Messerli
Larry Husten, PHD
Angiotensin-receptor blockers have been the subject of recent critical scrutiny. Last week, the FDA announced it was conducting a safety review of olmesartan. Over the weekend, the Lancet Oncology published a meta-analysis that found a small but statistically significant increase in the risk of developing new cancers in subjects taking ARBs. The authors of the […]
June 11th, 2010
FDA Announces Ongoing Safety Review of Olmesartan
Larry Husten, PHD
The FDA announced an ongoing safety review of olmesartan (Benicar). The agency said it “has not concluded that Benicar increases the risk of death” and advises patients and healthcare professionals that it “currently believes that the benefits of Benicar in patients with high blood pressure continue to outweigh its potential risks.” The review was prompted […]
June 10th, 2010
•Cardiac Embolism May Have Killed 13th Century Mummy
•FDA Panels to Review Rosiglitazone and Dabigatran
Larry Husten, PHD
Cardiac Embolism May Have Killed 13th Century Mummy: Italian researchers may have solved a 700-year-old medical mystery. It had previously been speculated that tuberculosis had been the cause of death of an 18- to 19-year-old girl who died in the 13th century and whose mummified remains have been preserved at the Santa Rosa monastery in […]
June 10th, 2010
Bleeding Avoidance Strategies in PCI
Steve Marso, MD
CardioExchange welcomes Dr. Steven Marso to answer questions about his recent paper in JAMA, which analyzed data from 1.5 million PCI patients from hospitals enrolled in the National Cardiovascular Data Registry (NCDR) to examine the use of bleeding-avoidance strategies. Manual compression was used in 35% of cases, vascular closure devices (VCDs) in 24%, bivalirudin in […]
June 9th, 2010
• Decline in MIs Observed Over Past Decade
• Smoke-Free Legislation Reduces MI Admissions in England
Larry Husten, PHD
Decline in MIs Observed Over Past Decade: Yeh and colleagues reviewed data from 46,000 hospitalizations for MI among more than 3 million people enrolled in the Kaiser Permanente Northern California system. In their paper in the New England Journal of Medicine, they report that from 1999 to 2008 the rate of MI decreased by 24%, […]