The ESC today announced that Jeroen Bax, a Dutch cardiologist, will serve as the group’s President Elect for the next two years before becoming President starting in 2016. Bax is a professor of cardiology at Leiden University Medical Center. Bax is also known for his very close collaboration with Don Poldermans, the disgraced Dutch researcher…
Newly Elected European Society Of Cardiology President Co-Authored Hundreds Of Papers With Don Poldermans
September 1, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Stents Lose In Comparisons With Surgery And Medical Therapy
December 3, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Despite the enormous increase in the use of stents in recent decades, there is little or no good evidence comparing their use to the alternatives of CABG surgery or optimal medical therapy in patients also eligible for these strategies. Now two new meta-analyses published in JAMA Internal Medicine provide new evidence that the alternatives to PCI remain attractive…
New Test Could Speed Heart Attack Treatment In The Emergency Department
September 4, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Only 1 in 10 patients with acute chest pain in the emergency department turn out to have an actual heart attack (myocardial infarction), yet many are not released from the hospital until after 6-12 hours of cardiac monitoring and multiple ECG and troponin tests. The search for a test that can rule out MI early in…
Study Fails To Support Broader Patient Population For Cardiac-Resynchronization Therapy
September 3, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Cardiac-resynchronization therapy (CRT) has been shown to be beneficial in heart failure (HF) patients with a wide QRS interval. These benefits have not been reproduced so far in patients with narrow QRS intervals, though many such patients have ventricular dyssynchrony. Now a new study, presented at the European Society of Cardiology in Amsterdam and published…
Automatic Wireless Monitoring Shows Benefits in Chronic Heart Failure
September 2, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Following in the wake of studies that failed to find benefits associated with remote wireless monitoring of heart failure (HF) patients, the In-Time trial, presented at the European Society of Cardiology meeting in Amsterdam, is the first trial to show that home monitoring of HF patients may be beneficial. Gerhard Hindricks, the coordinating investigator of…
Cardiovascular Outcome Studies in Diabetes Drugs Finally Arrive
September 2, 2013 by Leave a Comment
For many years critics have bemoaned the absence of outcome studies for the many diabetes drugs used to lower blood glucose levels. Now, finally, two large trials with different drugs have been presented at the European Society of Cardiology meeting in Amsterdam and published simultaneously in The New England Journal of Medicine. The good news is that…
Pretreatment with Prasugrel Not Indicated in NSTEMI
September 1, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Although current guidelines strongly recommend that dual antiplatelet therapy be administered early in treating patients with non-ST-segment-elevation acute myocardial infarction (NSTEMI), it is unclear whether pretreatment is beneficial,especially with the newer, more potent and more rapidly acting antiplatelet agents prasugrel (Effient, Lilly) and ticagrelor (Brilinta, AstraZeneca). Now a large new study, ACCOAST, presented at the European Society of…
A Disruptive TASTE of the Future? Getting the Best of Randomized Trials AND Observational Studies
September 1, 2013 by Leave a Comment
A new study from Scandanavia may influence the treatment of acute myocardial infarction. But it also may end up having a much bigger impact on the entire field of medicine by pointing the way to an entirely new way of performing randomized clinical trials rapidly and inexpensively. One expert said the trial design may represent…
Disappointing Results with Dabigatran for Mechanical Valves
September 1, 2013 by 1 Comment
Despite being more durable than bioprosthetic valves, mechanical heart valves are often not chosen because of the requirement for lifelong anticoagulant therapy. It has been hoped that the newer generation of oral anticoagulants might eventually replace warfarin, making anticoagulation more tolerable and better accepted, since these agents don’t require continuous monitoring and have much fewer…
Positive Results for New Anticoagulant From Daiichi Sankyo
September 1, 2013 by Leave a Comment
A new entrant in the growing oral anticoagulant field shows promise for the treatment of venous thromboembolism (VTE) and pulmonary embolism (PE). The drug, edoxaban, is a new, once-daily Factor Xa inhibitor with a rapid onset of action that is under development by Daiichi Sankyo. Results of the Hokusai-VTE trial were presented at the European Society of…
European Heart Guidelines Based On Disgraced Research May Have Caused Thousands Of Deaths
July 31, 2013 by 2 Comments
Despite a 2-year-old scandal discrediting key evidence, current guidelines relying on this evidence have not been revised. As a result of physicians following these guidelines, some researchers say, it is possible that thousands of patients may have died each year in the UK alone. It is unlikely that a true understanding of the damage will…
Sex And The Cardiac Patient Should Not Be A Taboo Subject
July 29, 2013 by 3 Comments
It’s not an easy conversation to have. After a heart attack or other major cardiac event, talking about sex is awkward, and often avoided by patients, their partners, and physicians. But a new consensus statement from several major cardiology organizations urges physicians to get over their reluctance or embarrassment and counsel their cardiac patients about…
Paper Raises Hundreds Of Questions About The Integrity Of Stem Cell Research Group
July 2, 2013 by 2 Comments
Serious questions have been raised about the integrity and validity of research performed by a well-established German stem cell research group. A paper published in the International Journal of Cardiology exhaustively details a multitude of discrepancies and contradictions in papers from the researcher’s group. Further, the revelation of such widespread misconduct may lead to broader disturbing questions about…
Top Line Results: No Cardiovascular Benefits Found For Saxagliptin
June 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Top line results of a large phase 4 study with saxagliptin (Onglyza, Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca) demonstrate that the drug is safe but has no cardiovascular benefits. AstraZeneca and Bristol-Myers Squibb today announced the top line results for the SAVOR-TIMI-53 Cardiovascular Outcomes Trial of Onglyza®. The full results are scheduled to presented at the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology in Amsterdam on…
Hot Line Trials For European Society Of Cardiology Congress Announced
June 18, 2013 by 1 Comment
The European Society of Cardiology has published the full program for the 2013 Congress taking place in Amsterdam from August 31 through September 4. There will be 4 Hot Line Sessions. Here is the schedule for Hot Line trials: … Click here to read the full post on Forbes. …
New European Hypertension Guidelines Released With Simplified Blood Pressure Target
June 14, 2013 by Leave a Comment
New hypertension guidelines from the European Society of Hypertension and the European Society of Cardiology were released in Milan today at the European Meeting on Hypertension & Cardiovascular Protection. The authors of the guidelines write that “despite overwhelming evidence that hypertension is a major cardiovascular risk, studies show that many are still unaware of the condition,…
European Heart Journal Retracts Main Paper Of The Kyoto Heart Study
February 2, 2013 by 1 Comment
The editors of the European Heart Journal have retracted the 2009 paper reporting the main results of the Kyoto Heart Study, a randomized, open-labeled study testing the add-on effect of valsartan to conventional therapy in high-risk hypertension. The retraction notice gave no details about the problems that led to the retraction. Here is the full text…
Get Ready For Munich: ESC Releases List Of Hot Line Sessions
July 6, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Here is the list of Hot Line sessions scheduled for the European Society of Cardiology ESC) meeting in Munich:…
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