The HCPLive conference coverage page features articles, videos, and expert-led live coverage from major medical meetings throughout the year.
Shah Named Master of American College of Cardiology
When he first discussed the idea of a vaccine to help fight heart disease P.K. Shah, MD, said he was laughed at for even considering the work. Several decades later the doctor is being lauded as his dream comes closer to becoming a reality.
Manual Thrombectomy Raises Stroke Risk
The practice of using a syringe to suck a blood clot out of a coronary artery when a heart attack patient is undergoing angioplasty is common. But a study of 10,000 patients showed this manual thrombectomy procedure was associated with a higher rate of strokes in these patients.
Moving Medicine Onto a Digital Platform
Patient care continues to make dramatic changes including the way information is shared not only between doctors and patients, but also other doctors treating the same people. Technology making that happen continues to evolve as well.
Atrial Fibrillation: Ablation Beats Drug
In patients with heart failure and atrial fibrillation, those who had catheter ablation had better results than those who took the anti-arrhythmic medication amiodarone, reported researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City.
Weighing the Benefits of Targeted Temperature Management
The use of targeted temperature management in patients who have suffered cardiac arrest remains a highly debated topic, especially in terms of whether there is an optimal target temperature for maximum benefit in reducing mortality and preserving cognitive function.
Promising Results from PEGASUS Trial Reported at ACC 2015
Paul Spittle, vice president, Cardiovascular and Respiratory, AstraZeneca US, discusses results from the PEGASUS trial and explains what they may mean for heart attack and stroke risk in patients who have suffered a myocardial infarction.
New Devices Help Detect Arrhythmia in Elderly Patients
Sunil Agarwal, MD, from Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, discussed the results of his research on the use of continuous cardiac monitoring to monitor elderly patients for atrial fibrillation and sub-clinical arrhythmia and help reduce their risk of stroke and other health complications.
Taking Coronary Intensive Care to the Next Level
Jason Katz, MD, MHS, from the University of North Carolina, discusses recent improvements in the field of coronary intensive care and identifies promising research that could lead to additional positive outcomes for patients.
Benefits Seen for Brain Shield Used with TAVR
The TriGuard filter, an investigational device designed to protect the brain from hazardous debris released during transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) and other procedures was found to improve in-hospital safety outcomes and cognitive scores at discharge.
Allergic Reactions End Anti-Clotting Drug's Trial
A trial of an anti-clotting therapy that might have given physicians a way to turn on and turn off the blood's tendency to clot had to be halted because some patients had severe allergic reactions, researchers reported. Now they are focusing on why that happened in hopes of reviving the work.
SAPIEN 3 Improves Outcomes in Intermediate-risk Patients
Compared with earlier generation devices, the SAPIEN 3 heart valve exhibited lower death, stroke, and paravalvular leak rates in high-risk surgery patients and demonstrated encouraging results in intermediate-risk patients.
Bendavia Trial Shows No Benefit in Angioplasty
Researchers had high hopes for the potential tissue-damage mediation capabilities of Bendavia, an experimental drug that targets the mitochondria. But a trial of Bendavia in patients undergoing angioplasty failed to show any significant benefit.
Self-expanding TAVR Preferred Over Surgery
Self-expanding transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) in high-risk aortic stenosis patients produces a more consistent survival rate compared with standard surgery, according to 2-year data presented at the American College of Cardiology meeting in San Diego, CA.
PCSK9 Inhibitors: Good News on Evolocumab
A new class of cholesterol-lowering drugs is emerging, known as PCSK9 inhibitors. Reporting on results of a safety and efficacy trial of Amgen's entry in this race, evolocumab, showed it did better than standard therapy when it came to adverse events and cholesterol lowering, and showed promise for reducing cardiac events.
Antidote for Ticagrelor Coming
AstraZeneca researchers report that a new drug call MED12452 is being developed as an antidote for patients who need to reverse the effects of ticagrelor (Brilinta/AstraZeneca) on an emergency basis. That could be important for patients taking ticagrelor who need emergency surgery or are bleeding from an accident.
Heart Screening for Pilots "Not Efficacious"
The time and money involved in screening echocardiography of stress testing in asymptomatic individuals with no cardiac risk factors is likely not worth it, an analysis of the US Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine's database found
Aged Garlic Extract: Slows CV Risk Factors
Previous studies have revealed Aged Garlic Extract (AGE) retards multiple cardiovascular risk factors, including blood pressure, cholesterol, platelet aggregation, and adhesion, while triggering nitric oxide generation within endothelial cells.
PROMISE Trial: CTA or Stress Test?
The PROMISE Trial (PROspective Multicenter Imaging Study for Evaluation of chest pain) showed no improvement in clinical outcomes when using Anatomic CT over functional testing for screening for coronary artery disease, however it did find an overall increase in radiation exposure.