November 19th, 2010
Darvon and Darvocet Withdrawn from U.S. Market
Larry Husten, PHD
The FDA announced today that Xanodyne Pharmaceuticals had agreed to withdraw Darvon and Darvocet from the U.S. market. The drugs contain the opioid propoxyphene, which the FDA said “puts patients at risk of potentially serious or even fatal heart rhythm abnormalities.” The FDA said it had asked generic manufacturers of propoxyphene to withdraw their products […]
November 19th, 2010
Will This Be the HDL Decade? REVEAL Revealed, Mixed Results for Apo-A1
Larry Husten, PHD
For a long time, HDL has been called the “good cholesterol.” Are we now entering the HDL decade? Two HDL-related trials were presented Wednesday at the AHA, and an array of additional trials are planned or underway, prompting the lead investigator of one of those trials, Chris Cannon, to speculate that this decade may be […]
November 18th, 2010
APPRAISE-2 Apixaban in ACS Study Discontinued Due to Increased Bleeding
Larry Husten, PHD
Bristol-Myers Squibb announced on Thursday evening the discontinuation of APPRAISE-2, the phase 3 trial comparing apixaban to placebo in patients with acute coronary syndrome. The decision was based on a recommendation from the data monitoring committee based on “a clinically important increase in bleeding among patients randomized to apixaban,” according to the company press release. […]
November 17th, 2010
Negative Trials, Positive Impact
John Ryan, MD
Several Cardiology Fellows who are attending this week’s AHA meeting are blogging together on CardioExchange. The Fellows include Susan Cheng, Madhavi Reddy, John Ryan, and Amit Shah. Check back often to learn about the biggest buzz in Chicago this week — whether it’s a poster, a presentation, or the word in the hallways. You can read […]
November 17th, 2010
Early Career Day: Review from the Epi Breakout Session
Amit Shah, MD, MSCR
Several Cardiology Fellows who are attending this week’s AHA meeting are blogging together on CardioExchange. The Fellows include Susan Cheng, Madhavi Reddy, John Ryan, and Amit Shah. Check back often to learn about the biggest buzz in Chicago this week — whether it’s a poster, a presentation, or the word in the hallways. You can read […]
November 17th, 2010
Anacetrapib: “Knock-Your-Socks-Off Effect on HDL and a Jaw-Dropping Effect on LDL”
Larry Husten, PHD
Following the failure of torcetrapib in 2006, the future of cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) inhibitors appeared quite troubled. Now, with the results of DEFINE (Determining the Efficacy and Tolerability of CETP Inhibition with Anacetrapib), presented at the AHA in Chicago and published online in the New England Journal of Medicine, the future for this novel […]
November 16th, 2010
“Phone It In” Heart-Failure Monitoring Offers No Advantage Over Usual Care
Larry Husten, PHD
CardioExchange welcomes Sarwat I. Chaudhry, first author of an NHLBI-funded trial in which 1653 recently hospitalized heart-failure patients were randomized to telemonitoring or usual care. The findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, failed to show an advantage of telemonitoring in the primary endpoint: rehospitalization for any reason or death from any cause […]
November 16th, 2010
Is There a Statistician in the Room?
Susan Cheng, MD
Several Cardiology Fellows who are attending this week’s AHA meeting are blogging together on CardioExchange. The Fellows include Susan Cheng, Madhavi Reddy, John Ryan, and Amit Shah. Check back often to learn about the biggest buzz in Chicago this week — whether it’s a poster, a presentation, or the word in the hallways. You can read […]
November 16th, 2010
Putting the EMPHASIS on Eplerenone for HF
Paul Armstrong, MD
In the EMPHASIS-HF study, aldosterone inhibition with eplerenone reduced the rate of death from cardiovascular causes or heart-failure (HF) hospitalizations by about 37% (compared with placebo) in patients with functional NHYA class II HF. CardioExchange welcomes Paul Armstrong, Professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiology at the University of Alberta, to answer our questions […]
November 16th, 2010
What Does BASKET PROVE Have to Prove?
L. David Hillis, MD and Richard A. Lange, MD, MBA
What to make of new findings that DES are just as good as BMS for treating lesions in large coronary arteries? David Hillis and Rick Lange provide a brief tour of the relevant issues. Getting a handle on the study… Previous data suggested that the use of DES in large native coronary arteries confers no […]