Hospitals that provide the most rapid emergency angioplasty have specific strategies to expedite the care of patients with heart attacks, researchers at Yale School of Medicine report in the November 13 New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).
On November 16, the American Cancer Society will hold its 30th annual Great American Smokeout. Every year, smokers across the nation take part in the Smokeout by smoking less or quitting for the day on the third Thursday of November. The event challenges people to stop using tobacco and raises awareness of the many effective ways to quit for good.
For chocolates lover this is going to be a treat as researchers found through a study that a few bits of dark chocolate a day can have the same benefit as aspirin in reducing blood clots and preventing heart attacks.
A check of US metro-area hospitals showed that most already are using newly recommended best practices for treating heart attack patients, unblocking arteries within 90 minutes of patients arriving at emergency rooms.
Angioplasty is found not effective for some patients after the first 12 hours of the heart attack. This common heart procedure is overused with no benefits to the patient.
Some ?chocoholics? who just couldn?t give up their favorite treat to comply with a study to test blood stickiness have inadvertently done their fellow chocolate lovers – and science – a big favor.
In the largest review of “broken heart syndrome” patients ever conducted, Mayo Clinic researchers studied 100 patients and found symptoms recurred in 1 out of 10 patients over a four-year period, and that patients experiencing physical stress had a worse survival rate than those under emotional stress.
About one-third of heart attack patients do not receive treatment to open blocked arteries within the recommended 12-hour timeframe after a heart attack. Treatment such as angioplasty or clot-busting drugs may not be given because patients arrive at the hospital too late.
In the days following a heart attack, patients who have no or mild symptoms and undergo a procedure called angioplasty to mechanically open their totally blocked coronary arteries do not reduce their risk of having another heart attack, going into heart failure or dying, according to the results of a new study.
Researchers today presented data showing that ACTOS (pioglitazone HCl) halted the progression of atherosclerosis as measured by carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) in patients with type 2 diabetes. Results from the clinical trial, CHICAGO (Carotid intima-media thickness in Atherosclerosis using pioglitazone), are part of a late-breaker presentation at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2006, coincidentally being held in Chicago, and coincide with an early online issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.