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Written by Gina Narcisi
QATLANTA - Originally piloted two years ago as the Improving Continuous Cardiac Care IC3 registry, the recently rebranded PINNACLE registry is the first and only ambulatory registry for cardiovascular conditions in this country, noted William Oetgen, MD, clinical associate professor of medicine at Georgetown University, at the 59th annual American College of Cardiology (ACC) annual conference on March 16.
Written by Justine Cadet
ATLANTA—Lowering blood pressure to below currently recommended levels did not significantly reduce the combined risk of fatal or nonfatal cardiovascular disease events in adults with type 2 diabetes who were at especially high risk for cardiovascular events, based on the ACCORD trial presented at the American College of Cardiology (ACC) conference today. Slides»
The use of at-home medical devices to connect doctors and patients via the internet can help patients and their physicians work more efficiently together to manage chronic conditions, according to research at Cleveland Clinic.
The FDA has snubbed Forest Laboratories' Supplemental New Drug Application submission that would have indicated nebivolol (Bystolic), currently approved for the treatment of hypertension, as an additional treatment for chronic heart failure (HF).
Behavioral changes such as reducing salt intake, eating healthier and exercising could help reduce the number of Americans with hypertension by 22 percent and reduce healthcare expenditures by $17.8 billion, according to a report published by the Institute of Medicine.
Modest reductions in dietary salt could substantially reduce cardiovascular events and medical costs and should be a public health target in the U.S., according to a study in the Feb. 18 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
The FDA has approved the hypertension treatment Benicar (olmesartan medoxomil, Daiichi Sankyo) for use in children and adolescents six to 16 years of age. Benicar was originally approved in 2002 for the treatment of hypertension in adults.
As cardiologists have done in the past with new technologies, they will have to find ways to use CT and MRI complementarily, rather than in a competitive manner.
Using beta blockers as a second-line drug therapy for hypertension patients can reduce blood pressure by 30 percent, if dosage is doubled, according to research published in the current issue of The Cochrane Library.
The prevalence of adults in the U.S. who are obese is still high, with about one-third of adults obese in 2007-2008, although new data suggest that the rate of increase for obesity in the U.S. in recent decades may be slowing, according to a study appearing in the Jan. 20 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
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Written by Gina Narcisi
ATLANTA -- The presence of obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD) was found to be a significant predictor of adverse cardiac events, and multi-detector CT may be able to predict cardiac events in known or suspected CAD, according to researchers from the Division of Cardiology at Daegu Catholic University in Daegu, South Korea.
While the rates of hospitalization for Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries with acute MI (AMI) have dropped significantly between 2002 and 2007, researchers found that these rates varied based on demographics, particularly race and gender, according to a study published online March 8 in Circulation.
Pharmaceutical companies will struggle to profit from the cardiovascular disease (CVD) market over the next decade despite growing drug usage, according to Datamonitor, which predicted that the CVD pharmaceutical market will grow from $99 billion in 2008 to $107 billion in 2018.
Written by Manjula Puthenedam
U.S. cardiologists are experiencing a 36 percent cut in SPECT imaging reimbursement as part of the 2010 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS). As a result, cardiology practices nationwide are trying to survive, while hoping that cardiology advocacy groups can persuade CMS that the dramatic cuts will potentially hurt patient care and increase healthcare costs in the long term.
A large single-center study has found that carotid artery restenosis (post-stenting) greater than 50 percent and cerebral events rather than retinal events are risk factors for recurrent stroke. Clopidogrel, however, reduced the risk, according to the investigation published in the February issue of Circulation: Cardiovascular Interventions.
In a trial to assess gender differences in coronary plaque composition, researchers found that women presented less coronary segments with calcified and mixed plaque than men and had exhibited lower rates of coronary segments with stenosis equal to or fewer than 70 percent. The study was published in the Feb. 15 issue of the American Journal of Cardiology.
The FDA has authorized perindopril erbumine in 2 mg, 4 mg, and 8 mg tablets from generic pharmaceutical maker Lupin Pharmaceuticals for use in patients with essential hypertension and as a conventional treatment for the management of coronary artery disease.
The FDA has warned that a review of additional data indicates an increased risk of heart attack and stroke in patients with a history of cardiovascular disease using sibutramine (Meridia, Abbott Laboratories), a drug used to curb obesity and enhance weight loss.
Acute kidney injury occurred in 11.7 percent of patients following transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI), and was associated with a greater than fourfold increase in the risk of postoperative mortality, according to a Canadian study published online Dec. 27 in the European Heart Journal.
The use of nebivolol (Bystolic, Forest Laboratories), an oral beta blocker, to treat hypertension was unanimously vetoed for its use as a treatment for chronic heart failure by the FDA’s Cardiovascular and Renal Drugs Advisory Committee on Monday.
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Middle age introduces itself in many ways; one is atrial fibrillation (AF). My onset of AF seems to have coincided with a mountain bike accident in the woods of North Carolina that resulted in some cracked ribs.
The use of health IT to reduce rehospitalizations will be welcome but also disruptive, said Stephen Jencks, an independent consultant in healthcare safety during a Feb. 24 webinar on the potential use of health IT to mitigate rehospitalizations, sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).