In much of the world (but not in the U.S.,) drug-coated stents are avoided by cardiologists because of their high cost. To compensate for the inability to use these stents, many cardiologists outside of the U.S. have taken to administering sirolimus (also
A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Practice Guidelines (ACC/AHA/SCAI Writing Committee to Update the 2001 Guidelines for Percutaneous Coronary Intervention)
Electron Beam CT, or EBCT scans (formerly called ultrafast CT scans) are useful in detecting the presence of calcium deposits in the lining of the coronary arteries. The presence of calcium deposits is a strong indicator that coronary artery disease is al
Surgery does not deal with the basic molecular foundation of disease. It is a mechanical approach to a biologic problem. For those of us who are considered experts in the areas of coronary disease, what an embarrassment to admit that coronary artery disea
Women and Heart Disease The Role of Diabetes and Hyperglycemia Elizabeth Barrett-Connor, MD; Elsa-Grace V. Giardina, MD; Anselm K. Gitt, MD; Uwe Gudat, MD; Helmut O. Steinberg, MD; Diethelm Tschoepe, MD Arch Intern Med. 2004;164:934-942.
Modern cardiology has given up on curing heart disease. Its aggressive interventions-- coronary artery bypass graft, atherectomy, angioplasty, and stenting--do not reduce the frequency of new heart attacks or prolong survival except in small subsets of pa
From hs-CRP results, doctors gain crucial insight into inflammation of the blood vessels around the heart, a factor not considered until now for patients at risk.
Overweight men and women assigned to drink fructose-sweetened beverages as 25% of their energy intake developed atherogenic lipid profiles in just two weeks; unlike glucose, fructose promotedatherogenic lioproprotein phenotypes and glucose intolerance/ins
Martin B. Leon, MD, violated academic ethics of the highest order by leaking results of the COURAGE trial prematurely, denigrating its design, discrediting its results, to protect pocketbooks of interventional cardiologists and stent industry. Sanctions
elective PTCA of totally occluded coronary arteries is feasible but the primary success rate is lower (57%) than that associated with conventional lesions. The long-term clinical results following successful angioplasty are satisfactory (64%), but the inc
Two Swiss meta-analyses have found an increased rate of myocardial infarction and death with the Cypher (sirolimus-eluting) coronary stent, which is likely to put a serious chill in interventional cardiology's infatuation with drug-coated devices
Third Joint Task Force of European and other Societies on Cardiovascular Disease Prevention in Clinical Practice (constituted by representatives of eight societies and by invited experts).