News

Like the wide-eyed toddlers who will stare in awe at their stack of holiday gifts this year, healthcare consumers certainly have a few surprises to get excited about as 2006 comes to a close.

When employees can't work because of sickness or injury, both employers and employees suffer. By using a holistic approach to maintaining a healthy workforce, employees are more secure, productivity improves and the cost of running a business can dramatically decrease.

Wherever you go, you can see technology's impact on our society. Household bills are paid online, satellites can locate your home from space, and cell phones have the ability to send and receive e-mail. Another area of society seeing a surge in technological advancement is the healthcare sector. From applying transactional data management for disaster recovery to implementing real-time analysis software to improving systems management, hospitals are adopting technology to ensure that their most important information-patient data is accessible and secure.

Low levels of testosterone are associated with an increased risk of mortality from coronary heart disease (CHD) in postmenopausal women, reported Gail A. Laughlin, PhD.

Men who suffer from migraines are at increased risk for cardiovascular events, according to researchers. The new findings follow similar reports that women with migraines are at higher risk for cardiovascular disease.

A change in resting heart rate in healthy middle-aged men is tied to mortality risk, with those who experience a long-term rise in resting heart rate having an increased risk of mortality and those with a long-term decrease in resting heart rate having a reduced risk of mortality.

After years of minimal results, stem cell research is forging ahead. "This is a new appetizer for what may be an excellent meal in years to come," said former AHA president Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, at a press briefing Tuesday morning. "Reports the past couple of years have been equivocal at best."

A rise in hemoglobin of at least 1 g/dL appears necessary to affect the course of heart failure in patients with symptomatic heart failure and anemia, according to a post hoc analysis of STAMINA-HeFT (Studies of Anemia in Heart Failure-Heart Failure Trial).

The practice of late reperfusion-percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) performed 2 to 28 days after myocardial infarction (MI)-in patients who are stable does not lead to improved clinical outcomes compared with medical therapy, said Judith S. Hochman, MD, lead investigator of the Occluded Artery Trial (OAT).

Pharmacist-directed education combined with prepackaging of medications increases compliance with medication schedules, leading to improvements in blood pressure and cholesterol levels among elderly patients, according to a study headed by Allen J. Taylor, MD.

The thiazolidinedione pioglitazone has a beneficial effect on carotid intima media thickness (CIMT) compared with glimepiride in patients with type 2 diabetes, said Theodore Mazzone, MD, lead investigator of the CHICAGO (Carotid Intima Media Thickness in Atherosclerosis Using Pioglitazone) study.

The first-ever anticoagulant drug-plus-antidote system has passed initial safety trials at Duke University in Durham, N.C. The new platform combines a short nucleic acid chain that quickly blocks clotting with an antidote that removes the clotting blockage in minutes.

Researchers in Japan have created the first heart valves using the recipients' own tissues-in rabbits. Growing replacement valves in a host with host tissue could virtually eliminate rejection when the valve is implanted.

A series of analyses offers no consensus on the safety of drug-eluting stents (DES) compared with bare metal stents. Depending on the study, DES either result in an increase in major adverse coronary events (MACE) or a decrease in subsequent need for coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery and repeat percutaneous coronary intervention without an excess of adverse clinical events.

A comparison of the investigational COX-2 inhibitor etoricoxib and diclofenac found no increase in the risk of cardiovascular events over 3 years with etoricoxib.

Screening for coronary calcium may provide an impetus for physicians to initiate preventive cardiovascular therapies in patients who have coronary calcium, but persistence with the medications is no better than in patients who are started on therapies without a coronary calcium test, said Allen J. Taylor, MD

Implanting a pacemaker or a cardiac defibrillator is the beginning of treatment, not the end. That was the message from a panel of researchers who spoke yesterday at the AHA Scientific Sessions.

Healthcare is a disaster in progress. That was the stark warning from AHA president Raymond Gibbons, MD, during his presidential address yesterday at the American Heart Association (AHA) Scientific Sessions.

A cost-effectiveness analysis suggests that restricting the use of drug-eluting stents (DES) is prudent. In the analysis, the substitution of DES for bare metal stents appears to be cost-effective only when the target vessel revascularization (TVR) rate with bare metal stents is high, which is typically the case in small vessels and longer stenoses, said Sanjay Kaul, MD, MPH.

Two studies confirm that chronic kidney disease (CKD) is associated with coronary heart disease (CHD) and its severity. In one of the studies, anemia was also a predictor of CHD and its severity.

Thiazolidinediones (TZDs) do not appear to increase the risk of heart failure (HF) hospitalization and death in ambulatory patients with diabetes and HF, according to a retrospective analysis of a veterans population.

The city of Chicago offers a host of activities, museums, shopping and cultural activities for attendees of the American Heart Association (AHA) Scientific Sessions 2006.

Welcome to Conference Update, highlights from the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions in Chicago, Illinois, Nov. 12-15, 2006.

Review of agents in late-stage development for the treatment of juvenile idiopathic, psoriatic, and rheumatoid arthritis (November 2006).

Dose consolidation is receiving mixed reviews as a cost-cutting strategy, according to pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). Although a study by Express Scripts, based in St. Louis, Mo, indicates that savings opportunities are limited, other PBMs have realized more value. With prescription drugs accounting for 10% of total healthcare expenditures according to the California Healthcare Foundation's third Health Care Costs 101 report, various cost-cutting strategies are worth exploring.

Wal-Mart recently announced a pilot program in Florida to sell 30-day prescriptions of approximately 300 generic medications for $4 each. At press time, Wal-Mart announced it will be rolling out the $4 generic prescription program in 26 additional states-3 months earlier than expected-reportedly because of consumer demand. Wal-Mart said 88,235 new prescriptions were filled in the 10 days after the initial rollout.

FDA's withdrawal of rofecoxib (Vioxx, Merck) in 2004 and other controversies have prompted numerous reports from legislators, the scientific community, and others calling for substantial changes in FDA's and its Center for Drug Evaluation and Research's (CDER's) roles as the nation's overseers of medication safety. The outcry for FDA reform reached another peak in late September when a committee convened by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies released its report, "The Future of Drug Safety," which recommended a "coherent and integrative approach" to transform the agency and a pharmaceutical industry that the committee says has had its credibility "compromised" in the eyes of the public.

This selective long-acting beta2-adrenergic receptor agonist causes relaxation of bronchial smooth muscle and has 2-fold greater potency than racemic formoterol. Arformoterol was approved on October 6, 2006, for the long-term, twice-daily (morning and evening) maintenance treatment of bronchoconstriction in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), including chronic bronchitis and emphysema.

A once-daily transdermal patch containing the dopamine receptor agonist rotigotine appears to be well tolerated, provides sustained relief from motor symptoms associated with Parkinson disease (PD), and has few dopaminergic adverse effects, particularly among elderly patients, reported Ray L. Watts, MD, and colleagues at the American Neurological Association 131st Annual Meeting, and Jack J. Chen, PharmD, and colleagues at the 2006 American College of Clinical Pharmacy Annual Meeting. Transdermal rotigotine is currently being reviewed by FDA for the treatment of early PD.

A secondary analysis of data from the Stroke Prevention with Aggressive Reduction in Cholesterol Levels (SPARCL) trial demonstrated that statin treatment can significantly reduce the severity of a second ischemic stroke in patients who had no history of coronary heart disease. With statin treatment, there were fewer fatal and severe strokes, fewer moderate and mild strokes, fewer transient ischemic attacks (TIAs), and more patients who had no events, said Larry B. Goldstein, MD, at the American Neurological Association (ANA) 131st Annual Meeting.