Shocked by the Shock trials?
No need to ask who was really shocked by the Halle Shock trial, followed by the multi-centre Shock II trial.
Heart attack
Preventing sporting deaths
Football authorities across the world have been urged to adopt a universal standard of emergency care to help cut the potential for serious injury or death during matches.
A new day for troponin in clinical practice
Beckman Coulter’s new Access AccuTnI+3 troponin I assay has received FDA clearance for its UniCel DxI series of immunoassay systems at the same time as having a new CE Mark approved on the UniCel DxI and Access 2 immunoassay instruments.
Infarction size and transmurality
A cardiac catheter is insufficient to evaluate the effects of a myocardial infarction. The size of the infarction and post-event cardiac muscle activity are crucial predictive parameters that determine therapy decisions
Intra-aortic balloon pump pros & cons
Since cardiac surgeon Adrian Kantrowitz, of the Maimonides Medical Centre, Brooklyn, first introduced intra-aortic balloon pulsation (IABP) into clinical practice in 1967 (Surg Clin North Am. 1969 Jun; 49 (3) :505 -11), the technique has been considered the method of choice for short-term mechanical cardiac support following a heart attack.
Cardiology drives innovation
‘Cardiology is one of the most innovative medical disciplines. Many modern technologies, such as catheterisations or imaging procedures, were triggered by cardiology,’ declared Professor Dr Gerald Maurer MD.
From bad breath to cardiac infarction
More than half of Germany’s population aged between 18 and 74 years cannot show off a gapless set of teeth, and that’s similar in France and worse only in Poland, according to a 2012 study, which also investigated oral hygiene.
Routine clinical use will take another decade
Numerous cardiac muscle cells die following myocardial infarction, due to reduced blood flow in the affected muscle areas. What remains is a scar, which also mechanically affects cardiac pumping. The muscle itself has no, or hardly any, capacity to regenerate itself.
PET/MR: The opportunities are almost unlimited
MRI has become the gold standard for many indications in cardiac imaging, apart from imaging the coronary arteries. For function and morphology assessment, MRI is the leading technology. A further advance into as yet unknown territory is myocardial imaging aided by one of the first integrated 3-Tesla PET/MR systems currently used at the Institute of Radiology, Essen University Hospital,…
Marriage reduces the risk of heart attack
A large population-based study from Finland has shown that being unmarried increases the risk of fatal and non-fatal heart attack in both men and women whatever their age.
Acute myocardial infarction
Could bone marrow cells prolong life? Recruitment of 3,000 patients will begin across the EU later this year for the BAMI (Bone Marrow Cells in Acute Myocardial Infarction) study, which will test whether stem cells taken from bone marrow and administered after a heart attack will prolong life. Mark Nicholls reports
Fatty Blood
Michael Rühl from the University of Greifswald, Working Group on Immunoadsorption and Cardiovascular Technology, describes therapies to tackle familial hypercholesterolemia
Free phone app helped doctors perform better in simulated cardiac emergency
Doctors who used a free iPhone application provided by the UK Resuscitation Council performed significantly better in a simulated medical emergency than those who did not, according to a study in the April issue of Anaesthesia.
2010 European Summit on CVD Prevention review
"Some progress, but the big challenges remain". This was the verdict after the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) hosted the 2010 European Summit on CVD Prevention on 30 November. The summit was attended by a broad cross-section of medical experts, healthcare organisations, national societies, regulators and representatives from the European Union (EU). The aim of this bi-annual event is to…
Europe's inconsistent use of device therapy in the prevention of sudden cardiac death
Even though the use of implantable devices for the treatment of heart failure and heart rhythm disturbances has increased enormously in Europe in recent years, there still remain large differences between countries. Indeed, a report last year in the European Journal of Heart Failure found that there is an underuse of devices in many of the European countries surveyed.(1) This is especially so in…
New diagnostic tools win the hearts of cardiologists
During the 2010 ESC meeting, held in Stockholm, new guidelines for myocardial revascularisation were handed down by a prestigious Task Force made up of representatives of both the ESC and the European Association of Cardio-Thoracic Surgeons (EACTS).
Fighting acute coronary syndrome
Today in most countries of the world almost 50 % of patients in hospital for a cardiac condition began their treatment as emergency cases: chest pain at home . . . a cardiac arrest in the street. Thus, according to Dr Peter Clemmensen, of the 22 million hospital admissions in Europe each year for acute cardiac events, more than 10 million of them would have begun as an emergency and without…
Colder days raise the risk of more heart attacks
In the light of global climate change, the relations between weather and health are of increasing interest. A drop in the average temperature outside is linked to a higher risk of people having heart attacks, according to a new study published on bmj.com today. UK researchers found that each 1°C reduction in temperature on a single day is associated with around 200 extra heart attacks.
The Heinz Nixdorf Recall Study
Initiated in 1999, the Heinz Nixdorf Recall Study involved 4,814 European participants. The results proved, for the first time, the connection between coronary calcifications and the risk of heart attack, according to scientists at the University Hospital in Essen. The finding by no means exhausted the potential inherent in the surveys. Subsidised until 2013, researchers are examining coronary…
New perspectives in coronary plaque imaging using dual source CT
Ongoing technical developments in computed tomography (CT) such as dual source CT have established coronary CT angiography (cCTA) as a robust non-invasive imaging test for the assessment of coronary artery disease. The most important advantage of cCTA over conventional catheter-based coronary angiography is that not only the coronary lumen but also the entire coronary artery wall is visualized…
Multi-modality imaging in coronary artery disease
The focus on Coronary artery disease – from genes to outcomes at ESC 2010 underlines the importance of CAD diagnosis on the scientific agenda. During the session ‘Multi modality imaging to detect coronary artery disease’, chaired by Professor JJ Bax, of the Cardiology Department at Leiden University Medical Centre, the Netherlands, experts will discuss, for example, the advantages of the…
Cardiac Biomarkers
When in 1992 Dr Luigi Marzio Biasucci, head of the Sub-intensive Care Unit at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome, Italy, published with his team the first paper on C-reactive protein (CRP) in unstable angina, few people believed in the diagnostic power of biochemical features to measure the effects or progress of disease, illness, or a condition. Today, biomarker tests are part…
News • Launch
Three improved cardiac marker test kits
Alere International* has launched three new next generation products: Troponin I -- a single-analyte, improved sensitivity Troponin I (TnI) test; Cardio2 -- a two analyte panel consisting of the new Troponin I and BNP, and Cardio3 -- a three analyte panel consisting of the new Troponin I, BNP and CK-MB.
Schiller AG - Pace maker of trends in emergency medicine
In Switzerland, they say, the clocks tick a little slower than elsewhere in the world. Not at Schiller AG in Baar, however: The company remains forever ahead of the times. Since 1971, physicist Alfred E Schiller, the company’s founder and managing director, has successfully shown competitors in the tough intensive and emergency care market what innovative progress really means.
Diabetes doubles CVD risk
A team led by UK-based researchers has found that having diabetes doubles the risk of developing a wide range of blood vessel diseases, including heart attacks and different types of stroke. The consortium, headed by Dr Nadeem Sarwar and Professor John Danesh of the University of Cambridge, analysed data from the individual records on 700,000 people, each of whom was monitored for about a decade…
