ACC 360˚

ACC 360˚ACC 360˚ Complete Conference Coverage
The Cardiovascular Business team was in Atlanta to cover the news at the 2010 ACC conference!

Go to our ACC 360˚ page for daily news coverage, slideshows from clinical trial presentations, and a comprehensive post show wrap-up.

 

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CRT Conference Coverage

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External Defibrillators

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Coronary Intervention

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TOP STORIES

NEJM: Cost-profiling tools misclassify physician performance

Thursday, March 18 2010
Cost-profiling tools produce misleading results and often misclassify physician performance, according to a RAND Corporation report published March 18 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

ACC: Is the jury still out on BMS vs. DES in STEMI patients?

Thursday, March 18 2010
ATLANTA—More research is needed on the relative costs and benefits of using drug-eluting stents (DES) versus bare-metal stents (BMS) in patients who have experienced a STEMI, according to the results based on the DEDICATION trial presented Tuesday at the ACC.10 conference. Slides»

ACC Feature: Saphenous vein grafts appear equal to radial artery grafts

Wednesday, March 17 2010
ATLANTA--Saphenous vein grafts and radial artery grafts both result in equal graft opening at one year, according to a study presented as a late-breaking clinical trial Tuesday at the American College of Cardiology’s (ACC) 59th annual scientific session. Slides»

ACC Feature: New F18-labeled PET perfusion tracer trumps technetium

Tuesday, March 16 2010
ATLANTA—A novel F18-labeled PET perfusion imaging agent has shown higher specificity for detecting right coronary artery disease compared to SPECT imaging with technetium-99m. In addition, the PET agent detected more severe and extensive stress perfusion abnormalities in the territories of diseased coronary arteries, according to an oral presentation Tuesday at the American College of Cardiology Meeting (ACC).
Web Exclusives

Commentary: Atrial fibrillation strikes an electrophysiologist

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.

AHRQ: Health IT could be disruptive while reducing rehospitalization rates, costs

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).

New patient monitoring model draws scrutiny

A new hospital breaking ground usually isn’t breaking news. But the vision of patient care at one new facility, tentatively named Palomar Medical Center West (PMC West), is currently illegal under California state law.
Latest News

ACC: McKesson updates CVIS with server virtualization, disaster recovery capabilities

Conference News | Thursday, March 18 2010
McKesson's Horizon Cardiology cardiovascular information system (CVIS) now offers hosted storage solutions for data protection, archive and disaster recovery, in addition to virtualized server solutions. The company announced these new options for Horizon version 12.1, a single-database CVIS, during ACC.10 in Atlanta.

ACC: St. Jude, Siemens partner to offer wireless FFR integration

Conference News | Thursday, March 18 2010
St. Jude Medical announced during ACC.10 a new marketing agreement with Siemens Healthcare that will allow integrated wireless fractional flow reserve (FFR) measurement with PressureWire Aeris as an upgrade to hospitals using the Siemens Axiom Sensis XP hemodynamic recording system.

ACC: Fujifilm highlights Synapse 3D advanced viz software

Conference News | Wednesday, March 17 2010
Fujifilm Medical Systems showcased a 3D advanced visualization package called Synapse 3D for integration into its Synapse cardiovascular informatics portfolio, at the 59th annual American College of Cardiology (ACC) Scientific Session in Atlanta this week.

ACC: GE's Holter algorithms alert CV staff to undiagnosed sleep apnea

Conference News | Wednesday, March 17 2010
GE Healthcare introduced the Mars Virtual Sleep Lab, a device that provides a quantitative sleep apnea analysis from any GE-monitored inpatient bed, at the 59th annual American College of Cardiology (ACC) conference in Atlanta.

ACC: Boston Scientific combines CV and rhythm divisions

Conference News | Wednesday, March 17 2010
Boston Scientific has a new cardiac rhythm and vascular (CRV) business unit, which is the combination of its cardiovascular and cardiac rhythm management divisions. The Natick, Mass.-based company highlighted the change at the recent American College of Cardiology (ACC) conference in Atlanta.

ACC: Enrollment complete for Promus Element small vessel/long lesion trials

Conference News | Wednesday, March 17 2010
Boston Scientific announced the completion of patient enrollment in the small vessel and long lesion trials of its PLATINUM clinical program during the American College of Cardiology (ACC) conference in Atlanta this week. The trials are designed to compare the platinum chromium Promus Element everolimus-eluting stent to matched historical control groups of patients treated with the Taxus Express paclitaxel-eluting stent.

AIM: New study refutes FDA's contraindication for Plavix and PPIs

Clinical Studies | Wednesday, March 17 2010
Heart patients who took proton-pump inhibitors (PPIs) along with clopidogrel were half as likely to be hospitalized for upper digestive tract bleeding than those who used clopidogrel alone. In addition, the PPIs did not inhibit clopidogrel’s therapeutic effect, according to a study published in the March 16 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

ACC Feature: Multaq may be feasible in AF patients soon after stopping Cordarone

Conference News | Wednesday, March 17 2010
ATLANTA--Patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) or atrial flutter (AFL) who transition to dronedarone (Multaq, Sanofi-Aventis) following prior treatment with amiodarone (Cordarone, Wyeth) were not associated with adverse events, according to a post-hoc analysis of pooled data from the EURIDIS and ADONIS trials presented Monday at the ACC.10 conference.

ACC: Spacelabs offers workflow technologies

Conference News | Wednesday, March 17 2010
Spacelabs Healthcare featured the Sentinel, a cardiology information management system, designed to provide hospitals with a paperless workflow, at the 59th annual American College of Cardiology (ACC) meeting.

ISMP releases Guidelines for Standard Order Sets

Industry News | Wednesday, March 17 2010
The Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) has released its Guidelines for Standard Order Sets to help organizations ensure that the elements of safe order communication have been followed when designing paper-based or electronic order sets. Focused primarily on medication orders, the guidelines also cover general aspects related to the design, approval and maintenance of all standard order sets.

FDA, Teleflex issue recalls for Arrow tubing sets, catheters

Regulatory News | Wednesday, March 17 2010
Medical device developer Teleflex Medical has issued a voluntary recall of the Arrow Select IV Tubing sets, accessories and certain lots of arterial embolectomy catheters after it discovered faults with the product's sterility.

Medtronic launches CoreValve transcatheter aortic valve trial

Industry News | Wednesday, March 17 2010
Medtronic has commenced an international clinical program for its CoreValve transcatheter aortic valve system, a minimally-invasive alternative to open-heart surgery for aortic valve replacement.

Kardia, TomTec team up for cardiovascular image analysis

Partnerships & Alliances | Wednesday, March 17 2010
Kardia Health Systems and Munich-based TomTec Imaging Systems have formed a new partnership to deliver TomTec’s multi-modality cardiovascular image analysis technology as a part of Kardia Complete, its forthcoming web-based service for workflow in cardiology practices.

ACC: How to avoid cath lab billing & coding 'ruts'

Conference News | Wednesday, March 17 2010
Coding and documentation is often the chink in a facility’s armor. Issues such as improper documentation, overcoding and a lack of communication between coders and physicians can often steer facilities into “a coding rut,” said Linda Gates-Striby, CCS-P, compliance manager at the Care Group in Indianapolis, during a presentation Tuesday at the American College of Cardiology (ACC) scientific sessions.


ACC: FDG PET a sensitive, specific choice for myocardial imaging

Conference News | Wednesday, March 17 2010
ATLANTA -- Rob Beanlands, MD, director of the National Cardiac PET Centre and the Molecular Function and Imaging Program at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, sought to convince physicians that FDG PET is among the best choices in imagining modalities for the assessment of myocardial viability, during an imaging symposium at the 59th annual American College of Cardiology (ACC) conference on March 15.

ACC: PINNACLE Registry aims to improve outpatient cardiac care

Conference News | Tuesday, March 16 2010
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.

AHA: Rising costs account for most of growth in spending on hospital care

Industry News | Tuesday, March 16 2010
Rising costs to hospitals accounted for 64 percent of the overall growth in spending on hospital care between 2004 and 2008, according to a report issued this month by the American Hospital Association (AHA).

ACC: First cardiac outpatient registry is put to the test

Conference News | Tuesday, March 16 2010
ATLANTA – While quality improvement measures in the inpatient setting may have been described and collected at healthcare practices for years, performance measures in the outpatient setting have not been systematically collected and the current performance in the outpatient setting is unknown, according to a presentation at the “Comparative Effectiveness and Outcomes” session at the 59th annual American College of Cardiology (ACC) conference on March 16.

ACC: Referral rates for PCI patient rehab remain low, disparities exist

Conference News | Tuesday, March 16 2010
ATLANTA--Referring PCI patients for cardiac rehabilitation can help improve care; however, the rates of referral remain low and large disparities exist between hospital sites, said Krishna G. Aragam, of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, during a poster presentation at the 59th annual American College of Cardiology (ACC) scientific sessions.

ACC Feature: New F18 tracer for heart failure shows preclinical promise

Conference News | Tuesday, March 16 2010
ATLANTA—A novel cardiac PET tracer that images the sympathetic nervous system for heart failure prognosis has been shown in preclinical studies to provide improved image quality compared with a SPECT heart failure tracer, according to a poster presentation on display Monday at the American College of Cardiology conference.

CRF/ACC: Xience is ‘economically dominant’ to Taxus

Conference News | Tuesday, March 16 2010
ATLANTA—At one-year in the SPIRIT IV trial, the use of Abbott’s Xience V stent was an “economically dominant strategy” compared with Boston Scientific’s Taxus stent with improved clinical outcomes and lower overall medical costs, according to the interim results of an analysis presented Saturday during CRF's Optimizing PCI Outcomes Symposium, which ran concurrent to the American College of Cardiology (ACC) conference. Slides»

ACC: With use of proper protocols, MRI may be safe for patients with ICDs

Conference News | Tuesday, March 16 2010
ATLANTA—For patients with implanted cardiac devices, MRI has never been a viable way to obtain diagnostic tests due to device contraindications and risks. However, new research has found that MRI testing in this patient population can be performed at little or no risk, Robert H. Helm, MD, from Boston Medical Center, said during a presentation at the American College of Cardiology (ACC) scientific sessions on Monday.

ACC: Myocardial viability: What imaging modality is right answer?

Conference News | Monday, March 15 2010
ATLANTA--In choosing the appropriate test, keeping clinical context in mind and understanding what the test indicates and what it does not indicate are key elements a physician must remember in selecting the correct imaging modality for the testing of myocardial viability, said Christopher Hanson, MD, professor of medicine and radiology at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, during an imaging symposium at the American College of Cardiology (ACC) annual conference on Monday.

ACC: Gender disparities exist in screening for heart disease

Conference News | Monday, March 15 2010
ATLANTA--“Within the past decade, our focus on women at risk has led to a clarification of understanding of the sex-specific factors that can influence our decisions and testing when it comes to women at risk or with symptoms of heart disease,” said Jennifer Mieres, MD, associate professor of medicine and director of nuclear cardiology at New York University School of Medicine, during a presentation at the 59th annual American College of Cardiology (ACC) conference.

ACC: Multi-detector CT has high predictive value for obstructive CAD detection

Conference News | Monday, March 15 2010
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.

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