What If The Media Covered The World Series The Same Way It Covers Science?
Note: This is a slightly updated version of an old post. I think it is especially relevant at this time of year. October brings the Nobel Prize announcements and the World Series. No one will mistake media coverage of one for the other. Each Nobel Prize will get one article and 10 seconds on the...Click here to continue reading... (Source: CardioBrief)
Source: CardioBrief - October 16, 2015 Category: Cardiology Authors: Larry Husten Tags: Classics People, Places & Events Policy & Ethics Kardashian media Nobel Prize science sports World Series Source Type: blogs
Desperately Seeking Patients: New Cholesterol Drug Makers Fuel Research To Find Customers
Everyone expects that the makers of the new PCSK9 inhibitor cholesterol lowering drugs are going to make billions and billions of dollars from these innovative new drugs. But before that can happen the companies that make the drugs will need to find the patients who will take the drug. To help find these patients a central strategy...Click here to continue reading... (Source: CardioBrief)
Source: CardioBrief - October 15, 2015 Category: Cardiology Authors: Larry Husten Tags: People, Places & Events Policy & Ethics Prevention, Epidemiology & Outcomes Amgen familial hypercholesterolemia FH PCSK9 Pfizer Regeneron Sanofi Source Type: blogs
But Cardiomyopathy Isn’t Supposed To Be Funny
Cardiomyopathy isn’t funny. In fact, sad to say, most of medicine isn’t exactly a laugh riot. But Jorge Muniz, a physician assistant and comic artist, wants to bring humor to medical education. Here’s a link to his kickstarter campaign. ...Click here to continue reading... (Source: CardioBrief)
Source: CardioBrief - October 14, 2015 Category: Cardiology Authors: Larry Husten Tags: People, Places & Events cardiomyopathy comics heart failure Source Type: blogs
The Expanding Universe: JAMA Announces New Cardiology Journal
Warning: snark and cynicism ahead. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: what the world needs now is another cardiology journal. And so, as if they were reading my mind and the collective mind of the cardiology community, the AMA announced today the launch of a new journal, JAMA Cardiology. The editor-in-chief will...Click here to continue reading... (Source: CardioBrief)
Source: CardioBrief - October 12, 2015 Category: Cardiology Authors: Larry Husten Tags: People, Places & Events Policy & Ethics Bonow cardiology journals JAMA JAMA Cardiology JAMA Internal Medicine Rita Redberg Source Type: blogs
Third Strike For CETP Inhibitors: Lilly Halts Big Evacetrapib Trial
For the third time a large trial testing a CETP inhibitor drug has gone down the tubes. On Monday morning Eli Lilly announced that it had terminated ACCELERATE, its large phase 3 trial of the drug evacetrapib. The company said the trial was stopped “due to insufficient efficacy” and that the company planned to discontinue...Click here to continue reading... (Source: CardioBrief)
Source: CardioBrief - October 12, 2015 Category: Cardiology Authors: Larry Husten Tags: People, Places & Events Policy & Ethics Prevention, Epidemiology & Outcomes CETP cholesterol evacetrapib HDL LDL Lilly Nissen Source Type: blogs
New Test May Allow Early Discharge Of Chest Pain Patients
Each year in the US about six million people go to the emergency department with chest pain or other symptoms suggesting that they might be having a heart attack or other acute coronary syndrome (ACS). The vast majority of them do not have ACS, but because it is difficult to quickly rule out ACS many of them end...Click here to continue reading... (Source: CardioBrief)
Source: CardioBrief - October 8, 2015 Category: Cardiology Authors: Larry Husten Tags: MI/ACS Policy & Ethics Prevention, Epidemiology & Outcomes Chest pain emergency department rule out troponin Source Type: blogs
‘Cardiology On A Collision Course With Specialty Pharmaceutical Pricing Models’
The recent approval of two new expensive cholesterol drugs “sets the practice of cardiology on a collision course with specialty pharmaceutical pricing models that were previously reserved for drugs that benefited relatively limited patient populations,” according to the authors of a perspective published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Until now cardiologists and other doctors treating the...Click here to continue reading... (Source: CardioBrief)
Source: CardioBrief - October 7, 2015 Category: Cardiology Authors: Larry Husten Tags: Policy & Ethics Prevention, Epidemiology & Outcomes Amgen cholesterol drug cost insurance PCSK9 Regeneron Sanofi Source Type: blogs
Possible Setback For Califf On Road To FDA
Rob Califf may have just run into his first serious roadblock on his path to become the FDA’s next commissioner. According to a report in the Boston Globe, Califf removed his name as a co-author from a series of papers, some of which were critical of current FDA policy. Until now Califf’s nomination has not encountered a...Click here to continue reading... (Source: CardioBrief)
Source: CardioBrief - October 7, 2015 Category: Cardiology Authors: Larry Husten Tags: People, Places & Events Policy & Ethics Califf clinical trials FDA Source Type: blogs
Heart Failure Experts SPRINT To An Early Finish
According to a recent news report a group of prominent heart failure doctors have eagerly embraced a lower blood pressure target of 120 mm Hg for heart failure patients based on the preliminary results of the SPRINT trial announced last month. But another equally prominent heart failure doctor says that it is far too early to...Click here to continue reading... (Source: CardioBrief)
Source: CardioBrief - October 7, 2015 Category: Cardiology Authors: Larry Husten Tags: Heart Failure People, Places & Events Policy & Ethics Prevention, Epidemiology & Outcomes blood pressure guidelines NIH SPRINT Source Type: blogs
New Cholesterol Drugs Gain Entry To Large Formulary
The two big and expensive new cholesterol drugs that everyone is talking about have both been added to the national preferred formulary of Express Scripts, the nation’s largest pharmacy benefit manager. The drugs– alirocumab (Praluent, from Regeneron and Sanofi) and evolocumab (Repatha, from Amgen)– are potent but expensive drugs that inhibit PCSK9 and dramatically lower LDL cholesterol. Both drugs...Click here to continue reading... (Source: CardioBrief)
Source: CardioBrief - October 6, 2015 Category: Cardiology Authors: Larry Husten Tags: People, Places & Events Policy & Ethics Prevention, Epidemiology & Outcomes Amgen cholesterol Express Scripts PCSK9 Regeneron Sanofi Source Type: blogs
New Concerns Raised About Bioprosthetic Aortic Valves
New, potentially important concerns have been raised about bioprosthetic aortic valves, both those implanted during surgery and those during a catheter-based procedure (TAVR). Investigators from three separate groups reported on their troubling findings in a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The article was accompanied by both an editorial and a perspective from the FDA....Click here to continue reading... (Source: CardioBrief)
Source: CardioBrief - October 5, 2015 Category: Cardiology Authors: Larry Husten Tags: Interventional Cardiology & Surgery People, Places & Events Aortic valve bioprosthesis TAVR Thrombus Source Type: blogs
Zero Calcium Score May Help Many Patients Skip Unwanted Treatment
The precise role of coronary artery calcium )CAC) scans in clinical practice has been the subject of considerable discussion and debate. Passionate advocates have been unable to persuade most physicians that obtaining routine calcium scores can help improve risk prediction and prognosis. No general consensus has yet emerged. Now a new study published in the Journal of the...Click here to continue reading... (Source: CardioBrief)
Source: CardioBrief - October 5, 2015 Category: Cardiology Authors: Larry Husten Tags: Policy & Ethics Prevention, Epidemiology & Outcomes calcium score coronary calcium risk factors Source Type: blogs
Study Raises New Questions About Perioperative Beta Blockers
A large observational study finds that patients with hypertension who are taking beta blockers have higher rates of cardiovascular complications after noncardiac surgery. The study appears to support current guidelines against using beta blockers in the initial treatment of essential hypertension and may offer a contribution to the ongoing debate over the use of perioperative beta-blockade for noncardiac surgery...Click here to continue reading... (Source: CardioBrief)
Source: CardioBrief - October 5, 2015 Category: Cardiology Authors: Larry Husten Tags: Policy & Ethics Prevention, Epidemiology & Outcomes beta blockers hypertension Source Type: blogs
New Cholesterol Drugs Not Breaking The Bank– Yet
Sales of the new cholesterol-lowering PCSK9 inhibitors have been lower than some had anticipated, the nation’s largest pharmacy benefit manager, Express Scripts, disclosed in a Reuters news story. The majority of prescriptions have been rejected by Express Scripts “because patients did not meet required medical criteria,” Reuters reported. “We’re seeing a lot of patients who either don’t qualify or...Click here to continue reading... (Source: CardioBrief)
Source: CardioBrief - October 1, 2015 Category: Cardiology Authors: Larry Husten Tags: People, Places & Events Policy & Ethics Prevention, Epidemiology & Outcomes cholesterol drugs Express Scripts PCSK9 reimbursement Source Type: blogs
Double Duty: Academic Leaders, Corporate Boards, And The Harvard Connection
A large and potentially disturbing number of leading academic figures serve on the board of directors of public healthcare companies, according to a new study published in BMJ. “These kind of industry relationships have not been front and center in most debates about conflict of interest (COI),” David Rothman, PhD, a medical historian at Columbia University, noted in...Click here to continue reading... (Source: CardioBrief)
Source: CardioBrief - September 29, 2015 Category: Cardiology Authors: Larry Husten Tags: People, Places & Events Policy & Ethics Baicker board of directors conflict of interest corporate board Harvard Zimetbaum Source Type: blogs
