Culture

An additional 1,000 patients could undergo kidney transplants in the United States annually if hospitals performed more transplants using paired kidney exchanges, new Johns Hopkins research suggests.

SAN FRANCISCO (March 11, 2013) —Digoxin significantly reduces the likelihood of hospital admission due to all causes among ambulatory older patients with chronic heart failure and reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF), according to research presented today at the American College of Cardiology's 62nd Annual Scientific Session.

SAN FRANCISCO (March 11, 2013) — The clot-busting drug tenecteplase prevents death or circulatory collapse in a subgroup of patients with a blood clot in the lungs and appears to be especially useful in patients younger than 75, according to research presented today at the American College of Cardiology's 62nd Annual Scientific Session.

SAN FRANCISCO (March 10, 2013) — A single dose of an investigational anti-inflammatory drug, inclacumab, reduced damage to heart tissue during angioplasty in a study presented today at the American College of Cardiology's 62nd Annual Scientific Session.

More than 1 million coronary angioplasty procedures are performed in the United States each year, at a cost of more than $10 billion. Heart tissue can be damaged during angioplasty, often leading to additional procedures, poor outcomes and higher health care costs.

SAN FRANCISCO (March 10, 2013) — A clot-busting therapy may benefit some heart attack patients who cannot have immediate angioplasty, according to research presented today at the American College of Cardiology's 62nd Annual Scientific Session.

"Drug therapy before transfer is at least as effective as [angioplasty], and an urgent catheterization was avoided in two-thirds of patients," said Frans Van de Werf, MD, PhD, professor of cardiology at University of Leuven, Belgium, and the study's lead investigator.

SAN FRANCISCO (March 10, 2013) — A commonly used anti-anginal drug reduces chest pain in patients with type 2 diabetes and appears to have a more pronounced effect in those with poorer glucose control, according to research presented today at the American College of Cardiology's 62nd Annual Scientific Session.

SAN FRANCISCO (March 10, 2013) — Heart attack patients given a combination of high-dose oral vitamins and minerals do not exhibit a significant reduction in recurrent cardiac events, according to research presented today at the American College of Cardiology's 62nd Annual Scientific Session. However, the results of one component of the NIH-funded Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy (TACT) study, shows that when combined with active chelation therapy, high-dose vitamins and minerals may provide some additional benefit.

SAN FRANCISCO (March 10, 2013) — The prescription drug eplerenone appears to reduce the risk of cardiovascular mortality and heart failure after a heart attack by more than one-third, according to research presented today at the American College of Cardiology's 62nd Annual Scientific Session.

SAN FRANCISCO (March 11, 2013) — Bypass surgery done without a heart-lung machine, known as off-pump, may provide better post-operative outcomes than on-pump bypass surgery for high-risk patients, according to research presented today at the American College of Cardiology's 62nd Annual Scientific Session.

The Royal College of Anaesthetists (RCoA) and the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland (AAGBI) today publish initial findings from a major study which looked at how many patients experienced accidental awareness during general anaesthesia.

UK children are being exposed to millions of tobacco images/messages every week on prime time television, indicates research published online in Tobacco Control.

Smoking and other tobacco content frequently feature in films marketed to kids, which is known to spark their interest in starting to smoke, say the authors.

More stringent curbs on tobacco imagery in the TV programme schedule could help curb uptake among young people, who spend an average of 2.5 hours in front of the box every day, they suggest.

SAN FRANCISCO (March 11, 2013) — Patients who underwent heart bypass surgery without a heart- lung machine did as well one year later as patients whose hearts were connected to a pump during surgery in a study presented today at the American College of Cardiology's 62nd Annual Scientific Session.

CORONARY, an international, multicenter trial of on-pump (with a heart-lung machine) versus off-pump bypass surgery, enrolled 4,752 patients already scheduled to undergo a bypass procedure. The study is the largest to compare the two approaches.

A small study of 20 people with Parkinson's disease suggests that "virtual house calls" using Web-based video conferencing provide clinical benefits comparable to in-person physician office visits, while saving patients and their caregivers time and travel.

SAN FRANCISCO -- A commonly used erectile dysfunction drug, sildenafil, doesn't help patients who have heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, a condition in which the heart's lower chambers are stiff and cannot relax and fill fully between beats. That is the finding of the RELAX study, presented today at the American College of Cardiology's 62nd Annual Scientific Session and simultaneously published in The Journal of the American Medical Association. The study's lead author called the results disappointing.

Among patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (a measure of heart function), administration of sildenafil (commercially known as Viagra) for 24 weeks, compared with placebo, did not result in significant improvement in exercise capacity or clinical status, according to a study published online by JAMA. Some studies have suggested that phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors (a class of drugs that includes sildenafil) may improve cardiovascular function.