Cardiovascular Disease

NEW ORLEANS – The largest, best controlled comparison of aspirin and warfarin ever done in patients with heart failure showed no overall difference between the two drugs for preventing thromboembolic events that cause death or stroke.

As a... »

Medicare officials have released a coverage proposal for transcatheter aortic valve replacement 3 months after the procedure was approved in the United States.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ proposal restricts the procedure’s... »

NEW ORLEANS – Compared with warfarin, the new-generation anticoagulant rivaroxaban was associated with a 40% lower risk of intracranial hemorrhage in patients with atrial fibrillation who were taking the agents to prevent stroke.

Since its approval... »

A difference of 15 mm Hg or more in systolic blood pressure between a patient’s arms may signal the presence of asymptomatic peripheral vascular disease, according to a meta-analysis published online Jan. 30 in the Lancet.

Patients with this... »

LAKE BUENA VISTA, FLA. – Patients on one of the powerful new oral anticoagulants are left without a good antidote for bleeding if they experience a traumatic injury.

The use of these agents is climbing as baby boomers age and the number of... »

A healthful dietary pattern may effectively turn back the clock for aging arteries and blunt the dramatic age-related rise in the prevalence of hypertension seen in the United States and other industrialized countries.

That’s been suspected for... »

Asymptomatic episodes of atrial fibrillation are common in elderly hypertensive patients with pacemakers and no history of clinical AF – and these subclinical atrial tachyarrhythmias are associated with a sharply increased risk of subsequent... »

New Stroke-Prevention Drugs Spur A-Fib Guides

WASHINGTON – The American College of Physicians Foundation* has created pharmaceutical company–sponsored physician and patient education materials aimed at preventing strokes among the estimated 2.6 million Americans with atrial... »

Current guidelines for correcting serum potassium levels in patients who present with acute MI are out of date and aim for targets that are too high, raising the risk of in-hospital mortality, according to a report in the Jan. 11 issue of JAMA.

In... »

The direct thrombin inhibitor dabigatran appears to raise the risk of myocardial infarction or acute coronary syndromes, according to a meta-analysis of seven randomized clinical trials published online Jan. 9 in the Archives of Internal Medicine.... »