A device first implanted in the United States at the University of Rochester Medical Center as part of a clinical trial is showing a significant reduction in blood pressure in patients who suffer from severe hypertension and cannot control their condition with medications or lifestyle changes.
An important first step in using new approaches to treating patients with heart failure – a condition that affects nearly 5 million Americans – requires scientific understanding of the relationship between the form of the heart and function, according to Bijoy K. Khandheria, M.D., FASE, FESC, FACC, chair of the Division of Cardiology at Mayo Clinic in Arizona.
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.
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital is ranked the overall #1 hospital in New York City, according to New York magazine’s 2006 “Best Hospitals” issue.
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.
For the first time, researchers have successfully used a rabbit’s cells to grow heart-valve-shaped tissue inside the animal’s body, according to research reported at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2006.
Women who smoke or are exposed to tobacco smoke early in their pregnancies are more likely to have children with certain types of congenital heart defects, researchers reported at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2006.
A program of time-specific ‘blister’ packaging, individualized patient education by a pharmacist and bimonthly pharmacist followup increases medication adherence from 61.2 percent to 96.9 percent in elderly patients at risk for heart disease.
Researchers in the randomized Multinational Etoricoxib and Diclofenac Arthritis Long-term (MEDAL) study program found identical rates of thrombotic cardiovascular events in patients with osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis treated with either the COX-2 inhibitor or the traditional NSAID. Christopher Cannon, M.D., an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston, noted that this appears to contradict earlier observational studies associating COX-2 inhibitors with higher rates of thrombotic cardiovascular events.
Results of a randomized trial of folic acid and B-vitamins in secondary prevention of cardiovascular events in women did not support their use as preventive agents against cardiovascular disease in women with established vascular disease or those at high risk.