August 4th, 2011
Pfizer Wants to Market OTC Atorvastatin (Lipitor)
Larry Husten, PHD
Pfizer will attempt to gain FDA approval to sell atorvastatin (Lipitor) over-the-counter, according to a report by Peter Loftus in the Wall Street Journal. In the past, the FDA has turned down requests to market other statins over-the-counter. Lipitor is scheduled to go off patent in November, well before an OTC version of the drug […]
August 3rd, 2011
Recommended Reading: A Critical (and Funny) View of Antioxidants
Larry Husten, PHD
“Antioxidants don’t work, but no one wants to hear it,” writes Kent Sepkowitz, an infectious diseases specialist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, in Slate. Sepkowitz reviews the sparse scientific knowledge about antioxidants and then discusses the difficulties faced by physicians who “were slow to jump onto the antioxidant bandwagon and are slower still to jump off.” “Few […]
August 1st, 2011
A Set of Calculators for Estimating Readmission Risk
Harlan M. Krumholz, MD, SM
If you are interested in a tool that estimates the readmission risk of a patient who has been hospitalized for acute myocardial infarction, heart failure, or pneumonia, you can find one at www.readmissionscore.org. Readmission rates are increasingly a focus of quality-of-care efforts in the U.S., including those initiated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid […]
August 1st, 2011
Moderate Exercise Delivers the Biggest Bang for the Buck
Larry Husten, PHD
Although the beneficial effects of physical activity in lowering risk for coronary heart disease (CHD) have been long recognized, the relative benefits of different levels of activity are not well understood. Now, a meta-analysis published in Circulation helps fill this significant gap. Jacob Sattelmair and colleagues identified nine studies that provided quantitative data about the […]
August 1st, 2011
Going Beyond COURAGE: NHLBI Funds the ISCHEMIA Study
Larry Husten, PHD
The NHLBI has awarded an $84 million grant to fund the International Study of Comparative Health Effectiveness with Medical and Invasive Approaches (ISCHEMIA). The trial will randomize 8,000 patients with stable ischemic heart disease and moderate-to-severe ischemia. Two different treatment strategies will be compared: An invasive strategy, consisting of early routine cardiac catheterization followed by […]