Reporting from:
American Heart Association Annual Scientific Sessions November 13-16, 2005, Dallas

In this edition:

Bryan Williams told American Heart Association attendees that measuring blood pressure with a cuff around the arm does not always give a clear picture of what’s happening in the aorta. The CAFE study found that central pressure can differ according to which agent is used, even though various drugs may give the same brachial blood pressure.

Withholding the use of abciximab infusion following stenting may cause no harm, provided the usual bolus administration of the drug has been used, according to Olivier Bertrand, who gave results of the EASY study at the Dallas meeting.

Lytics should not be given before primary PCI: so said Frans Van de Werf, who reported near-complete data from the ASSENT-4-PCI trial.

And in the real world, too, primary angioplasty is suprior to the use of lytic therapy for acute myocardial infarction except in cases where treatment is applied withing two hours - at which stage both approaches are equivalent. This was the finding from a study of 21 000 patients discussed by Ulf Stenestrand at the Dallas conference of the AHA.

Drug-eluting stents: bring no benefit in saphenous vein grafts, according to Jeff Trost. He made this conclusion from a registry analysis presented to the American Heart Association conference.
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Reporting from:
European Society of Cardiology Congress September 3-7, 2005, Stockholm

In this edition:

The RITA-3 trial - focussing on how to manage patients with acute coronary syndromes - reported 5-year data at this year’s ESC Congress. Keith Fox talked about new evidence that strengthens the case for aggressive management of patients.

The conference also heard the latest on the Endeavor stent, which elutes the sirolimus analogue ABT-578. Jean Fajadet from Toulouse discussed the ENDEAVOR-2 study.

A future option for treating in-stent restenosis by coating a balloon with an anti-proliferative drug and inflating it inside the newly-occluded stent was discussed at the ESC Congress by Bruno Scheller who presented the first study of such a device in humans.

In the treatment of acute myocardial infarction, the 24-country ASSENT-4 study seems to show an overall increase of risk if you use thrombolysis before primary PCI. Frans Van de Werf gave the 30 day analysis. Kim Fox comments.
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Reporting from:
American College of Cardiology Annual Scientific Session 2005, March 6-9, Orlando, Florida

In this edition:

Adnan Kastrati has found that a study comparing the two main drug eluting stents in terms of late lumen loss suggests sirolimus has the upper hand over paclitaxel among diabetic patients. Marie-Claude Morice’s study has also found sirolimus stents to be slightly superior in terms of neointimal growth rates among non-diabetic patients.

Nikolaus Marx’s investigation shows that the oral anti-diabetic drug, pioglitazone, can be used to reduce the formation of new tissue inside a stent in non-diabetics, and could reduce restenosis rates.

John Cleland and Kenneth Ellenbogen review findings that cardiac resynchronisation - or atrial-biventricular pacing - extends life in patients with severe heart failure and cardiac dysynchrony.

Germano Di Sciascio and Lloyd Klein discuss how doubling the usual clopidogrel dose may be best in coronary intervention.

Zhenming Chen & Rory Collins found that adding clopidogrel to the usual care of patients with acute myocardial infarction is of clear benefit according to the findings of the 46,000 patient COMMIT Study. However, the use of metoprolol in the same acute MI patients is not endorsed for all patients.
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Reporting from:
American Heart Association Scientific Sessions, New Orleans, November 7-10, 2004

In this edition:

In severe heart failure, Teresa De Marco told delegates at the American Heart Association meeting, vasodilators bring better survival rates as first line therapy than inotropes.

Marc Pfeffer’s results show that adding extra medications such as ACE inhibitors may not improve outcomes - contradicting received wisdom from another recent study.

A synthetic jacket acting like a support stocking can bring benefit to the failing heart, according to Douglas Mann who described his investigation at the New Orleans conference.

Anthony Gerschlick has discovered that in centres where lytic therapy for infarction is the first line of attack, patients needing further rescue should receive angioplasty and not repeat lysis.

David Malenka told the conference how his team found that bypass grafting was better than angioplasty in three-vessel disease.

The idea of getting barbers to screen for blood pressure was raised at the New Orleans conference by Paul Hess following a successful trial conducted by his group.
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Reporting from:
European Society of Cardiology Congress, Munich, August 28-1 September, 2004

In this edition:

The RITA-3 trial - focussing on how to manage patients with acute coronary syndromes - reported 5-year data at this year’s ESC Congress. Keith Fox talked about new evidence that strengthens the case for aggressive management of patients.

The conference also heard the latest on the Endeavor stent, which elutes the sirolimus analogue ABT-578. Jean Fajadet from Toulouse discussed the ENDEAVOR-2 study.

A future option for treating in-stent restenosis by coating a balloon with an anti-proliferative drug and inflating it inside the newly-occluded stent was discussed at the ESC Congress by Bruno Scheller who presented the first study of such a device in humans.

In the treatment of acute myocardial infarction, the 24-country ASSENT-4 study seems to show an overall increase of risk if you use thrombolysis before primary PCI. Frans Van de Werf gave the 30 day analysis. Kim Fox comments.
…

Click here for more.