Jan 30th, 2023 - HealthDay News — Rural residence is associated with an increased risk for heart failure among women and Black men, according to a study published online in JAMA Cardiology. Sarah E. Turecamo, from the US National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and colleagues assessed whether rurality is associated with an increased risk for heart failure. The analysis included data from 27,115 part...

Jan 25th, 2023 - Premature cardiovascular disease (CVD) was associated with accelerated decline in cognition and white matter health in midlife, a large prospective cohort study showed. On a composite cognitive score, those with CVD events before age 60 were more than three times as likely to drop by at least 1.5 standard deviation more than the race-specific average over 5 years (OR 3.07, 95% CI 1.65-5.71), Kr...

Jan 24th, 2023 - In the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities cohort, people with carotid atherosclerosis in mid-life were more likely to have worse hearing decades later. (JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery) Higher HDL cholesterol corresponded with a higher risk of fractures in individuals over age 70. (JAMA Cardiology) Regarding screening children for lipid disorders, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Forc...

Jan 18th, 2023 - For patients with a variety of traumatic bone fractures, plain old oral aspirin provided just as good thromboprophylaxis as traditional low-molecular-weight heparin (LMWH) injections in the large PREVENT CLOT randomized trial. Aspirin met noninferiority criteria against enoxaparin for all-cause mortality at 90 days (0.78% vs 0.73%, P<0.001 for noninferiority under a margin of 0.75 percentage po...

Jan 17th, 2023 - Happier, more optimistic teens stood a better chance of good cardiometabolic health approaching middle age. (Journal of the American Heart Association) Black Americans did not lose weight or improve lipid levels after switching to vegan soul food, a randomized trial showed. (JAMA Network Open) Emotional eating, such as overeating when one is sad, was associated with arterial stiffness in a long...

Jan 11th, 2023 - Studies have increasingly shown that short and excessively long sleep durations are linked to worse cardiovascular outcomes,1 and accumulating research has begun to shed light on the deleterious effects of other components of poor sleep patterns, such as nighttime waking and increased sleep latency. In light of these findings, the American Heart Association (AHA) has made sleep health 1 of the ...

Jan 10th, 2023 - Electrophysiologists hoping to improve upon ablation therapy for persistent atrial fibrillation (Afib, AF) found no success going the extra mile to isolate the patient's left atrial posterior wall, according to a randomized trial. People undergoing their first-time catheter ablation for Afib ended up with similar odds of a good outcome at 12 months -- freedom from any documented atrial arrhythm...

Jan 10th, 2023 - Myocarditis associated with mRNA COVID-19 vaccines may be related to circulating free spike antigen, according to a study of antibody profiling and T-cell responses to immunization. (Circulation) Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin's cardiac arrest last week prompted increased interest in online CPR education and resources, the American Heart Association said. Both hypotension and hypertension we...

Jan 8th, 2023 - In this exclusive video, Harlan Krumholz, MD, SM, director of the Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation at Yale University and Yale New Haven Hospital in Connecticut, reflects on the on-field cardiac arrest of NFL safety Damar Hamlin and the lessons to learn from this dramatic event. Krumholz, a cardiologist, is also the Harold H. Hines, Jr. Professor of Medicine and a professor in the In...

Jan 5th, 2023 - This spring, discussions on how to build a workforce that better meets the needs of the heart failure population will begin in earnest. The alarming number of unfilled fellowship spots for advanced heart failure and transplant cardiology (AHFTC) each year shows that the field is not enticing new trainees, despite the growing clinical need and advances in therapeutics. As recently as the 2023-20...

Jan 4th, 2023 - Making the Diagnosis To accurately assess and diagnose this patient’s condition, the clinician needs to consider conditions that would cause finger pain without injury. Infectious conditions would be a consideration but in this case no visible paronychia is found and an abscess would typically present as a red, swollen, and/or warm finger. Rheumatologic conditions can cause finger pain, but rap...

Jan 4th, 2023 - History of Present Illness A patient in his mid-60s with a history of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) presents to the emergency department (ED) with a 4-day history of left ring finger pain and discoloration. The patient denies any fever, injury, or other complaint. Vital Signs and Physical Examination The patient’s vital signs in the ED are essentially normal. Physical examination is normal exc...

Jan 3rd, 2023 - One in four cardiologists around the world self-reported having a mental health condition such as alcohol or drug use disorder, psychological distress, or major psychiatric disorder. (Journal of the American College of Cardiology) A polygenic risk score for coronary artery disease helped reclassify people at borderline and intermediate clinical risk who may be candidates for primary prevention ...

Dec 29th, 2022 - There may be a limit to how much reducing cardiometabolic disease would lower the risk of dementia in older people genetically predisposed to both conditions, a twin study suggested. Twins over age 60 developed dementia at an incidence of 16.9% over a median 15.4 years of follow-up in a cohort counting over 17,000 individuals in the Swedish Twin Registry, the largest population-based twin regis...

Dec 27th, 2022 - More steps each day mean lower risk of cardiovascular disease for older adults, a meta-analysis affirmed. (Circulation) Coronary artery calcium scoring ruled out obstructive coronary disease with good accuracy in the early triage of patients with chest pain in a large cohort study. However, it did not perform as well in those under age 45. (Heart) For patients with acute myocardial infarction, ...

Dec 27th, 2022 - Endovascular thrombectomy (EVT) benefited select stroke patients presenting beyond 24 hours of the time they were last known well, a small observational cohort study showed. Compared with such very late-presenting stroke patients receiving medical management alone, those selected for EVT were more likely to achieve functional independence at 90 days (38% vs 10%, adjusted OR 4.56, 95% CI 2.28-9....

Dec 27th, 2022 - Earlier this year, empagliflozin (Jardiance) won FDA approval for a broader indication in heart failure across the spectrum of ejection fraction. As part of our review of the year's top stories, we follow up on what has happened since this approval. Many heart failure patients started the year not being eligible for SGLT2 inhibitors. At the end of 2022, there is now one on the market with broad...

Dec 20th, 2022 - In the quest to catch myocarditis earlier during immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy for cancer, researchers have found a potential role for routinely measured biomarkers. Of 2,606 consecutive ICI recipients at Michigan Medicine, the 1% who developed myocarditis often or always had elevated high-sensitivity troponin T (hsTnT; 100%), alanine aminotransferase (ALT; 88.9%), aspartate aminotr...

Dec 19th, 2022 - In SPRINT, intensive systolic blood pressure lowering decreased natriuretic peptide levels but increased high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T (cTn). (Circulation) The medical community braces for harmful messaging about COVID-19 vaccines after Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, MD, PhD, announced plans for another study on their links to myocarditis. (Orlando Sentinel) As an alternative to h...

Dec 19th, 2022 - When cardiac arrest occurs in the catheterization laboratory, the chances of survival has depended to a large extent on the facility, a national registry study showed. Median risk-adjusted survival rates ranged from 20% to 52% at hospitals in the lowest and highest tertiles, respectively, cardiologist Deepak Bhatt, MD, MPH, of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, and collea...