American College of Cardiology

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.

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.

A multi-national workplace fitness event got workers out of their chairs by racing around the globe, virtually.

Even as technology improves to help patients dealing with cardiovascular disease, those responsible for the procedures also must consider providing treatment while weighing the costs of that work.

Since its inception nearly a decade ago the PARTNER trials have shown new opportunities for cardiovascular disease patients to receive treatment they may not have been candidates for before.

An experiment in which paramedics gave heart attack patients antiarrythmic drugs before they arrived at a hospital had disappointing results.

Can “Chest Pain Choice†an informative chart designed to guide emergency patients in making treatment decisions make a difference in care, patient anxiety, and costs? Mayo Clinic doctors say it did in their study.

For a chronic condition like heart failure there are many factors that can help decide the effectiveness of their care. A recent debate looked at whether low salt diet would help in that effort.

As doctors have more tools to treat patients with high cholesterol the American College of Cardiology released a new consensus statement to give guidance on potential best practices for non-statin therapies like PCSK9 inhibitors.

Even the most seasoned medical research teams can find themselves not reaching the goals they set out for themselves in a study. Learning from those lessons can sometimes be more motivation to find answers down the road.

With statins being a common treatment option for high cholesterol and PCSK9 inhibitors gaining traction since their approval in the past year research has looked at just how low a person's LDL, or bad cholesterol can go.

At the 2015 meeting of the American College of Cardiology PCSK9 inhibitors like Praluent were moving closer to approval but were not there yet. Since then they have been approved and begun to be introduced to the public.

The American College of Cardiology's outgoing President Kim A. Williams, MD, went vegan in 2003 and never looked back. He talks about the diet's power to heal and how being the ACC's first vegan leader played out.