Cardiology

Many factors contribute to a patient being diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea, including obesity. Research is looking at the condition's role in the treatment of stroke patients.

Following a stroke patients require a variety of rehabilitation options from physical and occupational therapy to speech therapy among others. A recent study looked at the benefits of aerobic exercise in the recovery process.

It's too soon to say whether Vitamin D is a player or just a bystander in the assault on the brain during a stroke, but low levels of the supplement are associated with greater tissue damage in stroke patients, a University of Massachusetts Medical School team found. Reporting at the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association International Stroke Conference in Nashville, Tenn., Nils Henninger, MD said low vitamin D level predicts more severe strokes and poorer health afterwards.

The treatment a stroke patient gets can sometimes be determined by where they go for their care. The imaging used to determine treatment options however can be almost universal when used correctly.

Surviving a stroke but driving a month afterwards could mean a higher chance of causing a motor vehicle accident, two small Canadian studies have found. In research presented at the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference in Nashville, Tenn, two graduate students reported on serious driving errors patients made post-stroke. They were tested on driving simulators.

With CT scans and MRI doctors can get a clearer picture of a stroke patient's condition and how best to treat them.

There are many treatment options for stroke patients and many advancements in the field recently with some being more aggressive than others. The benefits of each also pose potential problems for patients.

At the International Stroke Conference in Nashville, Marion Buckwalter, MD, PhD, presented the results of a study looking at the link between B Lymphocytes and dementia in mice. The study could help with the treatment of post-stroke human patients in the future.

Several trials have been conducted, and many more are yet to be completed, that have the goal of addressing whether intensive blood glucose control and intensive blood pressure (BP) control have any long-term benefit on all-cause mortality and major cardiovascular events. Contradictory data have been published with respect to the short- and long-term benefits of aggressive BP and blood glucose control versus conventional treatments for BP and glucose control. This review presents the main points of some of the important trials to date on this subject.

Kyra Becker, MD, chair of the International Stroke Conference 2015 Program Committee, discusses several key topics of interest to watch for at this year's event.

Air pollution should be viewed as one of several major modifiable risk factors in the prevention and management of cardiovascular disease.

This issue of Cardiology Review discusses many important articles and viewpoints that I am sure you will find quite useful.

Each year, the American Heart Association's (AHA's) Scientific Sessions is the organization's largest yearly gathering of healthcare professionals and researchers in the field of cardiovascular disease and stroke. Providing 5 days of comprehensive education with more than 4000 presentations by world leaders in cardiovascular disease, the AHA 2014 Scientific Sessions featured the results of landmark and long-awaited clinical trials.

Worsening renal function over time is associated with poorer outcomes in patients with acute and chronic HF. Although this association is established in patients with reduced ejection fraction, there are no data about the relationship between WRF and outcomes in HF patients with preserved ejection fraction.

It is generally accepted that drug-eluting stents (DES) decrease the risk of restenosis in native coronary arteries compared with bare metal stents. However, the overall safety and benefit of DES implantation, including long-term benefits, in saphenous vein bypass grafts remains the subject, at least to some extent, of continued evaluation.

A recent study has generated a great deal of excitement because Dutch researchers reported that a new intra-arterial treatment greatly improves the prognosis for people with acute ischemic stroke caused by a proximal intracranial arterial occlusion of the anterior circulation.

Is degree of diffuse myocardial fibrosis associated with severity of diastolic dysfunction in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction?

Drug therapy is recognized as an effective way to lower lipids and control hypertension, and for its effect on reducing the incidence of myocardial infarction. However, the impact of personal habits, such as eating, drinking, smoking, and exercise, on the incidence of coronary heart disease without reliance on prescription medications and their potential side effects may be less well established.

Although digoxin has a very long clinical history, no randomized controlled trial has evaluated the use of digoxin for atrial fibrillation (AF). Therefore, the evidence for its use in AF is based on post hoc analyses of RCTs or on findings from observational studies. Several studies have shown the association of digoxin use with increased mortality rates. However, other studies have reported the opposite conclusions, and it remains controversial whether digoxin use is associated with increased mortality in patients with AF.

Patients with high body mass indexes and obesity are at greater risk for developing obstructive sleep apnea. This meta-analysis looked to determine if the use of Continuous Positive Airway Pressure for sleep apnea would result in weight loss or weight gain.

As electronic health records become more prevalent in the healthcare community, the number of software options doctors can choose from seems to range as widely as the practices themselves.

For patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation, preventing stroke using anti-coagulation medication is the standard of care. This study looked at using a device that closes off the left atrial appendage of the heart to determine if it too would lower the risk of stroke.

This study was a prospective cohort of 198 self-selected, adult patients with documented coronary artery disease, cerebrovascular disease, carotid artery disease, or peripheral arterial disease who followed a strict, plant-based dietary intervention in addition to standard medical therapy. The study examined compliance with diet as well as adverse cardiovascular events in both adherent and nonadherent patients.

A 60 year-old man presents with complaints of a skipped heartbeat, shortness of breath and some light-headedness while sitting. When he is active, he has none of these symptoms. He is able to walk, climb stairs and even exercise on his elliptical without symptoms.

As of January 5, 2015, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recognizes interventional cardiology as its own distinct physician specialty.

While various behavioral and pharmacologic agents have proven to be effective and safe for continued smoking cessation, a combination of varenicline and nicotine replacement (NRT) with transdermal patches has not been shown definitively to be more efficacious than varenicline alone. In the framework of a randomized clinical trial (RCT), the present study evaluates whether a combination of varenicline with NRT improved smoking cessation rates and abstinence duration compared with varenicline alone.

This observational cohort study from New Zealand found that "gossipy" magazines are often subtly taken from your waiting room, while the "non-gossipy" magazines remain.

Implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) have prevented cardiac arrests and deaths, but they carry a risk of giving patients shocks when they don't need them. That inappropriate shock rate has been estimated as occurring in 10 to 20% of patients with the devices, causing unnecessary hospital admissions, and a negative impact on patients' quality of life. They are also associated with increased morbidity and mortality for some patients. But in a study in Heart Rhythm Angelo Auricchio, MD, PhD, and colleagues report on technological improvements in a Medtronic device that has reduced those shocks to 1.5% with a dual/triple chamber defibrillator and 2.5% for a single chamber ICD after one year.

Corticosteroid (steroid) is associated with an approximately 5-fold increase of venous thromboembolism in patients suffering from inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), according to a new study published in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology.

A novel oral anticoagulant's trial performance has led European regulators to approve its use in cardioversion for patients with atrial fibrillation.