Cardiology

Aparna M. Bhagavat, MD, FACC, says gliptins have a promising role in the control of type 2 diabetes, as they decrease A1C without hypoglycemia, weight gain, or any obvious adverse effects on cardiovascular outcomes.

In pulmonary arterial hypertension patients, riociguat serves as a reasonable first-line alternative to PDE-5 inhibitors or in combination therapy with an endothelin antagonist or inhaled prostacyclin analogues.

Examining data from the National Health and Nutrition Exam Survey tells physicians a great deal about childhood obesity and risk factors for high blood pressure.

Diana Fancher, DNP, MBA, RN, says replacing the fee-for-service model with bundled payments has its own set of problems.

The wide variation in geographic utilization of coronary angiography, percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), and coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery, despite reimbursement structure, suggests that capitation alone may not lead to reductions in variation.

Rabab Mohsin, MD, reviews adverse outcomes among women from the Women's Ischemia Syndrome Evaluation (WISE) study.

Have the Appropriate Use Criteria for transthoracic echocardiography achieved their goal of having a significant clinical impact on physician decision making?

Early diagnosis by primary care physicians and aggressive treatment are essential to slowing the epidemic of kidney and cardiovascular disease.

Researchers have studied the effects of hormone therapy on the lipid profiles of postmenopausal women.

Study shows patients who switched from treatment with a ritonavir-boosted protease inhibitor maintained virologic suppression, experienced improved lipid profiles, and suffered fewer side effects.

New insurance protections, changes in how AIDS Drug Assistance Program benefits are counted, Medicaid expansion, and other provisions in the law will mean better care for many patients.

Researchers determine that recurrent miscarriage risk is elevated in women who carry the ACE I/D polymorphism.

Researchers at Duke University discover that hearts from donors with histories of cardiac arrest can be successfully transplanted, sometimes with excellent outcomes.

Though patients may not disclose suicidal thoughts and behaviors to their physicians, their blood test results can be dead giveaways.

Though many patients indicate side effects as the reason they stop taking their prescribed statins, clinical trials have not documented high discontinuation rates due to adverse drug reactions.

Cardiac surgery teams should be trained to improve communication and teamwork, and hospitals should establish robust quality assurance systems to identify and correct safety hazards.

Patients who are unaware that they have diabetes may have less contact with healthcare professionals, receive less aggressive treatment, or have a poorer understanding of the disease and the actions required to treat it - all of which may be responsible for their increased risk of morbidity and mortality.

Medicare will be assessing $227 million in fines against hospitals in 49 states as part of the federal government's campaign to reduce the number of patients readmitted within a month of discharge.