September 11th, 2014
Is This Trial Ethical?
CardioExchange Editors, Staff
Does the need for a new placebo-controlled trial of epinephrine in cardiac arrest justify questionable consent procedures?
September 11th, 2014
FDA Approves New Weight Loss Drug
Larry Husten, PHD
The FDA announced today that it had approved Contrave, the long-awaited and much-disputed weight loss drug. Contrave is a combination of two drugs already approved for other indications: naltrexone hydrochloride, which is used to combat alcohol and opioid dependence, and bupropion, which is used to treat depression and seasonal affective disorder and as an aid to smoking cessation treatment. […]
September 10th, 2014
FDA Advisory Panel Offers Cautious Support for Polypill
Larry Husten, PHD
The controversial polypill took one step closer to reaching the U.S. market after receiving a mostly positive reception from the FDA’s Cardiovascular and Renal Drugs Advisory Committee on Wednesday. The idea for the polypill– which in this case would be composed of aspirin, a statin, and one or more blood pressure drugs– has been kicking around for […]
September 9th, 2014
Lower Rate of Microvascular Complications in Statin Users Who Develop Diabetes
Larry Husten, PHD
In recent years, the medical community has become increasingly aware that taking statins can result in slightly higher glucose levels, and this can lead to a diagnosis of diabetes in a small but statistically significant number of people. But it has been unclear whether the diagnosis of diabetes in people taking statins also places them […]
September 8th, 2014
Anteroseptal MI and Left-Main Dissection in a Pregnant Woman
Harsh Golwala, MD and James Fang, MD
Harsh Golwala presents our latest case: A 25-year-old woman, 32 weeks pregnant, presents with sudden-onset chest pain. How do you proceed?
September 8th, 2014
Selections from Richard Lehman’s Literature Review: September 8th
Richard Lehman, BM, BCh, MRCGP
This week’s topics include the PARADIGM-HF trial, sham controls in medical-device trials, the efficacy of β blockers in patients with heart failure and atrial fibrillation, and more.
September 5th, 2014
Perspectives on PARADIGM-HF
CardioExchange Editors, Staff
The Editors present a distillation of reader comments on a popular post.
September 3rd, 2014
FAME 2 at 2 Years: Better with Time?
CardioExchange Editors, Staff
The CardioExchange editors ask whether the 2-year findings from FAME 2 are more compelling than the 7-month findings.
September 2nd, 2014
Low-Carb Diet Linked to Greater Weight Loss Than Low-Fat Diet
A low-carbohydrate diet is associated with greater weight reduction than a low-fat diet among obese adults, according to an Annals of Internal Medicine study. Roughly 150 obese adults who were otherwise healthy were randomized to eat either a low-fat (<30% fat) or low-carbohydrate (<40 g/day of digestible carbohydrates) diet. Participants were provided diet-specific handbooks with […]
September 2nd, 2014
Fractional Flow Reserve Gains Support in Stable CAD and NSTEMI
Larry Husten, PHD
Two studies presented at the European Society of Cardiology meeting in Barcelona offered fresh support for fractional flow reserve (FFR), which has been slowly but surely gaining traction in the interventional cardiology community. FFR in Patients with Stable CAD Bernard De Bruyne presented 2-year results from the FAME 2 (Fractional flow reserve versus Angiography for […]