Cardiology

Robert Roswell, MD, of NYU School of Medicine, discussed how much a physician's gut really comes into play when diagnosing chest pain at the American College of Physicians Internal Medicine Meeting (ACP 2017) in San Diego, California.

The MD Magazine editors rounded up the 10 best stories from this month.

Using the database from the 40-country, double-blind phase 3 ARISTOTLE study, which has been around for over 5 years, a sub-analysis was conducted by Renato Lopes, MD, PhD, professor of Medicine at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina and colleagues.

THe ACC's meeting offered studies likelcc200y to impact clinical practice.

It’s a discussion that even the most seasoned physicians might struggle with—when is it time to talk end-of-life care? Ami Bhatt, MD, director of the Adult Congenital Heart Disease Program at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) explained both sides of the debate for patients with adult congenital heart disease.

Some women may have suffered with cardiovascular problems since birth while others don’t find out until pregnancy unmasks the condition. Doreen DeFaria Yeh, MD, discusses the importance of merging physicians from cardiology and obstetrics.

Compared with warfarin, are direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs), including apixaban, dabigatran, and rivaroxaban, better at reducing stroke and major bleeding risks in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation? Alpesh Amin, MD, professor of medicine at the University of California, Irvine breaks it down at ACC 2017 in Washington, District of Columbia.

NSAIDs may help a variety of painful conditions, but come with heart risks.

Steven Zelenkofske, DO, vice president of US Medical Affairs at AstraZeneca, talked with MD Magazine about the CVD-REAL study where researchers examined patients with type 2 diabetes taking the new class of diabetes drug, SGLT-2 inhibitors. Positive outcomes were reported with dapagliflozin, canagliflozin, and empagliflozin.

Heart damage after non-cardiac surgery is usually missed. A test finds it.

In patients with AFib, digoxin should not be a first-line drug.

Microbleeds in the brain appear to increase with cardiac procedures:Study.

In the first head to head trial, rivaroxaban was more effective than aspirin.

A synthetic version of "good" cholesterol failed to clear blocked arteries.

Bleeding complications with rivaroxaban no worse than with aspirin.

Study: no worries about cognition loss with PCSK9s.

Paul Burton, MD, PhD, revealed results from the phase 3 EINSTEIN CHOICE trial at the 66th Scientific Session of the American College of Cardiology (ACC 2017) in Washington, District of Columbia. The trial examined the use of rivaroxaban (Xarelto/Janssen) or aspirin as extended treatment in patients with VTE.

The Absorb GT1 Bioresorbable Vascular Stent raised concerns at the FDA.

Excitement has been surrounding PCSK9 inhibitors due to high efficacy in lowering cholesterol. However, two reports in 2015 found that two of these drugs (evolocumab and alirocumab) were linked to cognitive issues. A phase 3 trial at ACC 2017 set out to find if that's actually the case.

Drugs were as effective in CTO patients as PCI, Korean study found.

New diagnostic tool iFR is less painful for heart patients than FFR.

Scott Solomon, MD, director of Noninvasive Cardiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, detailed study results for sacubitril/valsartan the first angiotensin receptor neprilysin inhibitor to be approved by the FDA for its indication.

Jay Edelberg, MD, PhD, discusses the alirocumab phase 3 trial results at ACC 2017. “The results demonstrated that genetics really teach us a lot,” he said, noting that the majority of high-risk patients were able to achieve their treatment goals with just the 75 mg dose.

In a large, long-term clinical trial evolocumab reduced heart risk.

In another major study comparing TAVR to surgery, outcomes were similar.

Details on why Pfizer pulled its PCSK9 inhibitor seen in SPIRE studies.

Fainting is common, but how should physicians treat it?

Jay Jin, MD, PhD, Mayo Clinic, shared the results from his team's case series surrounding unexpected bradycardia effect from epinephrine administration.

A Mass General team reports high accuracy with non-invasive CAD test.

Steven Nissen, MD, says that heart attacks in fit people are not unusual.