This week’s topics include the safety and efficacy of sitagliptin for type 2 diabetes, use of glucocorticoids and the risk of VTE, and forced smoking abstinence.

This week’s topics include the ADVANCE III trial, the latest fish-oil supplement study, and a review of management strategies for asymptomatic carotid stenosis.

In recent weeks the cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) field has been absorbing the publication of the BLOCK HF trial in the New England Journal of Medicine and the publication of the NARROW-CRT trial in Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology. These trials raised the possibility that CRT may improve clinical status in some patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy and narrow QRS. At the same time, however, news emerged that the EchoCRT trial, which was looking at CRT in HF patients with QRS <130 msec, had been stopped due to futility. CardioExchange’s John Ryan… Continue Reading

My 3-year-old daughter helps me see the influence of pharma on research.

This week Richard discusses a study on remeasuring CV risk in untreated people at low and intermediate risk.

Cardiology is now standardized and guideline-based. We have algorithms for everything. Is there any room left for thinking?

This week’s topics include the association of perioperative beta-blockade with mortality and CV morbidity following major noncardiac surgery, intestinal microbial metabolism of phosphatidylcholine and CV risk, and more.

Recently in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology Viskin et al published the results of a survey  looking at the worldwide availability of quinidine. They found that the drug — the only effective oral antiarrhythmic in Brugada syndrome and idiopathic ventricular fibrillation — is readily available in only 19 countries and is unavailable or requires special procedures to obtain it in 99 countries. One country where quinidine is unavailable is Ireland. CardioExchange’s John Ryan asked Dr. Gerry Fahy, a cardiac electrophysiologist from Cork University Hospital, and Niamh O’Hanlon, a pharmacist… Continue Reading

In a study recently published online by JACC, investigators assess the association between natriuretic peptide levels and body-fat distribution. Ian Neeland, the lead author of the study, responds to John Ryan’s questions.

This week’s topics include the prevalence of a healthy lifestyle among those with CV disease in high-, middle-, and low-income countries, nonemergency PCI at hospitals with or without on-site cardiac surgery, and coronary artery calcium score prediction of all-cause mortality and CV events in those with type-2 diabetes.