Two new trials have ended up reporting conflicting results regarding the expansion of the indication for cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) for patients without a wide QRS interval. The positive results of the smaller trial seem likely to be undermined by the early stopping of the much larger trial. The first trial, NARROW-CRT, published in Circulation:…
Conflicting Results From Two Trials Of Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy
April 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Actelion Executive To Head American College of Cardiology
April 22, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Shalom “Shal” Jacobovitz will be the new chief executive officer of the American College of Cardiology, the ACC announced today. Jacobovitz is currently the president of the US division of Actelion Pharmaceuticals, best known for its pulmonary hypertension drugs. Click here to read the complete story on Forbes. …
Blood Sample Mismatch Leads ‘Anguished’ Authors To Retract Three Lipitor Papers
April 16, 2013 by 1 Comment
Three substudies of the influential TNT (Treating to New Targets) trial have been retracted after the sponsor of the trial, Pfizer, discovered that blood samples from the study had been matched to the wrong participants. The main results of TNT, published in 2005 in the New England Journal of Medicine, had a major impact on clinical practice and statin prescription patterns….
New York Area Cardiologist Admits $19 Million Fraud
April 11, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Jose Katz, a 68-year-old cardiologist with offices in New York and New Jersey, has pleaded guilty to charges that he committed health care fraud, the US Attorney for New Jersey announced yesterday. Katz admitted that he billed Medicare Part B, Medicaid, and numerous private insurers “for unnecessary tests and unnecessary procedures based on false diagnoses…
Cuban History Offers Important Lessons For Global Health Today
April 10, 2013 by 1 Comment
A large new study from Cuba shows the impressive benefits that can be achieved with weight loss and increased exercise. Much more ominously, the same study shows the dangers associated with weight gain and less exercise. In the study, published in BMJ, researchers took advantage of a “natural” experiment that occurred in Cuba as a result of a…
A Closer Look At A Case Of Duplicate Publication In JACC
April 10, 2013 by 2 Comments
The Journal of the American College of Cardiology has published a Notice of Duplication about a review article written by a respected European cardiology researcher who has played a central role in the development of fractional flow reserve (FFR). The brief statement from JACC provides few details and could lead to various interpretations, but a further investigation suggests that the story may…
Quinidine Unavailable In Most Of The World
April 9, 2013 by 1 Comment
Quinidine– the only drug known to be effective in preventing lethal ventricular arrhythmias in people with several rare conditions, including Brugada syndrome, idiopathic ventricular fibrillation, and early repolarization syndrome– is no longer available in much of the world. In a study published online in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Sami Viskin and colleagues surveyed…
Lifelong Statin Sentence Now Includes Furloughs
April 2, 2013 by 1 Comment
Although the benefits of statins are among the best documented in all of medicine, continuous lifelong statin therapy is not always easy to achieve in clinical practice. Now a new retrospective study suggests that although clinical events causing temporary cessation of statin therapy occur often, most of these patients are later able to resume statin…
A Guide To The Raging Debate Over The NIH’s TACT Chelation Trial
April 2, 2013 by 7 Comments
(Updated) The publication in JAMA of the NIH’s Trial To Assess Chelation Therapy (TACT) trial has provoked a fascinating debate in the blogosphere. The vast majority of responsible physicians and healthcare professionals have little interest in chelation therapy per se, but the TACT trial has raised many important questions about the nature of medical evidence. Here’s a brief…
FDA Panel Gives Tepid Endorsement To Abbott’s MitraClip
March 20, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The FDA’s Circulatory System Devices advisory panel today gave a tepid endorsement to Abbott Laboratories’ MitraClip device. The panel met to evaluate use of the novel device in patients with significant symptomatic mitral regurgitation (MR) who have been determined by a cardiac surgeon to be too high risk for open mitral valve surgery and in whom existing…
Controversial PFO Closure Trials Published In NEJM
March 20, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Two controversial trials testing PFO closure with the Amplatzer PFO Occluder (St. Jude Medical) in patients with cryptogenic stroke, first presented last fall at the TCT meeting, have now been published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Both trials missed their primary endpoints but contained suggestions of possible benefit. The results appear unlikely to resolve…
Radiotherapy For Breast Cancer Increases Heart Disease Risk
March 13, 2013 by 1 Comment
A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine offers the best look yet at the increased risk for heart disease produced by radiotherapy for breast cancer. Further, this increased risk may just be the tip of the iceberg of more radiation-related problems, warns a cardio-oncologist in an accompanying editorial. The new study, based on data…
Was Atherosclerosis The Real Curse Of The Mummy?
March 10, 2013 by 2 Comments
From a growing evidence base of mummies, researchers are now concluding that atherosclerosis may have been common in people who lived in premodern times. A new study presented at the ACC in San Francisco and published simultaneously in the Lancet appears likely to challenge the common belief that atherosclerosis is largely a phenomenon of the modern…
Late-Breaking News: Confusion Over ACC Late-Breaker Trial
March 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment
In an extremely unusual move, only days before the scheduled presentation of the main results of a highly-anticipated late-breaking clinical trial, the trial’s sponsor announced that the full results of the trial would not be presented. Instead, the company said the principal investigator would present only one of three of the trial’s primary endpoints, the acute procedural…
Veterans Study Finds HIV To Be An Independent Risk Factor For MI
March 4, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Although it has long been suspected that people with the HIV virus are at increased risk for cardiovascular (CV) disease, reliable data has not been available. Now a new study published online in JAMA Internal Medicine provides a much clearer picture of the relationship between CV disease and HIV. … In an accompanying editorial, Patrick Mallon writes…
Bad Pharma And The Statin Wars
March 1, 2013 by 4 Comments
It’s been amusing to watch former Pfizer executive John LaMattina try to pick apart Ben Goldacre’s new book, Bad Pharma, a powerful indictment of the industry in which LaMattina used to work. This is not the occasion to get into the details of this battle, but as an aside let me just say that I would…
Mixed Results For Spironolactone In Heart Failure With Preserved Ejection Fraction
February 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Although the mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists (MRAs) spironolactone and eplerenone (Inspra, Pfizer) have been shown to be beneficial in patients with heart failure (HF) with reduced ejection fraction (EF), their role in heart failure patients with preserved EF has not been tested until now. Now the results of the Aldo-DHF (Aldosterone Receptor Blockade in Diastolic Heart Failure), published…
Whistleblower Lawsuit Yields $2.4 Million For New Jersey Cardiologist
January 31, 2013 by 2 Comments
A New Jersey cardiologist will receive $2.4 million for his role in a whistleblower lawsuit against Cooper Health System and Cooper University Hospital. Following an investigation by the US Department of Justice and the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office, Cooper agreed last week to pay $12.6 million to settle Medicare and Medicaid fraud allegations. The…
Small Study Suggests Yoga May Benefit AF Patients
January 30, 2013 by Leave a Comment
A small study published online in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology suggests that yoga may benefit people who have atrial fibrillation. The study, which the authors describe as “a small, proof-of-concept study,” is the first of its kind. The findings raise the possibility that yoga may reduce AF symptoms and arrhythmia burden. Other…
Popular Antidepressants May Put Patients At Risk For Serious Arrhythmias
January 29, 2013 by 1 Comment
In August 2011 the FDA issued a safety communication recommending that the extremely popular antidepressant citalopram (Celexa) not be used at doses greater than 40 mg/day because of a potential increased risk for serious cardiac arrhythmias associated with prolongation of the QT interval. Now a study published in BMJ lends support to this warning and suggests that…
The Big Gamble of CETP Inhibitors
January 25, 2013 by 2 Comments
Merck has invested a substantial amount of money on the CETP inhibitor anacetrapib. Chemist and veteran pharma blogger Derek Lowe suspects that the company might as well have plunked the money down in a casino. In a provocative new post, Lowe wonders if big pharma, in its desperation, has abandoned rational research in favor of, essentially,…
Two Experts Help Sort Out The New Generation Of Anticoagulants
January 17, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Don’t miss this very practical discussion about the new generation of anticoagulants and the short term loan costs to cover them over on CardioExchange. Here are a few excerpts. Christian Thomas Ruff: I believe the addition of the 3 currently approved novel anticoagulants (dabigatran, rivaroxaban, and apixaban) will eventually translate into a greater proportion of eligible patients…
Atrial Fibrillation Linked To Increased Risk For Sudden Cardiac Death
January 14, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Although atrial fibrillation (AF) is well known to be associated with an increase in the risk of stroke and coronary heart disease, a similar association with sudden cardiac death (SCD) has been suspected but not demonstrated in the past. Now a new study examing data from two large population studies offers evidence that AF is…
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