Heart Disease

Coronary CT in a low-risk population

Updated: 2011-05-30 11:46:26

The role of atherosclerotic plaque imaging techniques in the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease remains to be determined. Perhaps the most promising technique at the moment is coronary CT, which has a high sensitivity for the detection of atherosclerosis. However, the benefits of CT must be balanced against the risks of contrast and radiation exposure. [...]

Medical therapy underused in patients undergoing PCI

Updated: 2011-05-28 19:15:49

Optimal medical therapy (OMT) has previously been shown to lead to similar rates of cardiovascular events as percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in patients with stable coronary artery disease. Most noticeably, the COURAGE trial showed that PCI did not improve patient survival or prevent myocardial infarction. However, it is also known that the findings of important [...]

More baked and broiled fish, lowers heart-failure risk

Updated: 2011-05-25 16:25:00

Women who ate five or more servings of baked or broiled fish a week had a 30 percent lower risk of heart failure compared with those who ate less than one serving per month, according to a very large study...

Eating dairy doesn’t raise heart attack risk

Updated: 2011-05-23 12:45:00

Eating dairy products doesn't raise the risk of a heart attack, even though high-fat dairy products may raise cholesterol, new research has found. But positive effects from nutrients in dairy, and negatives from saturated fats, may be cancelling each other...

Let’s hear it for the Cardiac Surgeons

Updated: 2011-05-19 22:58:21

As I have blogged about before, the number of hours we sleep is important to our fitness and mental ability. In addition, I have blogged about the challenges of medical training in a new era of limited work hours for both students and residents. Although some believe that these regulations are all good, there is [...]

Nanopatch for the heart

Updated: 2011-05-19 15:43:56

When you suffer a heart attack, a part of your heart dies. Nerve cells in the heart's wall and a special class of cells that spontaneously expand and contract � keeping the heart beating in perfect synchronicity � are lost forever. Surgeons can't repair the affected area. It's as if when confronted with a road riddled with potholes, you abandon what's there and build a new road instead........

If it doesn’t work on my stent, I’ll just drink it

Updated: 2011-05-17 19:45:31

Coronary stents are the little engine that could. They saved coronary angioplasty from the probable scrape heap as who really wants a procedure that only worked one half the time? Stents now provide an almost unlimited opportunity to repair coronary anatomy with satisfying long term results. Stents, however humble appearing, are micro looking but macro engineered. [...]

Doctors still don’t have the “COURAGE”

Updated: 2011-05-12 18:50:34

Clearly, doctors are not reading my blogs. I have blogged about the COURAGE trial before, the last time on February 22, 2010. In an article published in JAMA 2011; 305(18):1882-1889, we as doctors are again taken to task for not doing what large expense randomized clinical trials suggest we do. In brief, the COURAGE trial or [...]

A good idea that is ignored. Until now.

Updated: 2011-05-10 21:43:27

Photo Source: AccessMedicine © 1978-Present McGraw-Hill and/or its respective owners. Medicine moves slowly and rarely in a straight line. Change is hard to implement in particular if you are going to try to change an institution. But, medicine and we who practice it, have an obligation to identify any institute changes that seem to improve patient [...]

I thought I was doing a great job at 150 (Part 2)

Updated: 2011-05-05 21:29:58

The use of guidelines has become a valuable resource for all practicing physicians. They serve as a measure of how we are doing and add insight into why we physicians do things and how to improve our patient care. One problem with them is that they often run into 100 or more pages. The material is [...]

Measures of clinical adiposity and cardiovascular risk

Updated: 2011-05-05 11:53:35

The importance of clinical measures of adiposity (such as body-mass index [BMI], waist circumference, and waist-to-hip ratio) in calculating cardiovascular risk remains controversial. For example, both the World Health Organisation and the United States National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute recommend assessment of BMI, however several common cardiovascular disease risk scores (e.g. PROCAM) omit adiposity [...]

Some Warfarin Tablets Recalled

Updated: 2011-05-04 15:47:03

Drugmaker Bristol-Myers Squibb has initiated a voluntary recall of a single lot of 5 mg tablets of warfarin sodium (Coumadin) because the tablets have been found to have a higher potency than expected.