AMPLATZER PFO Occluder OK ’ed by FDA to Reduce Risk of Recurrent Ischemic Stroke in Patients with PFO
Patent foramen ovale (PFO) is present in up to 25 percent of the general population. Although it’s asymptomatic for most people with the condition, and most don’t even know they have it, some with PFO can suffer from repeat ischemic strokes. St. Jude Medical won FDA approval to introduce its AMPLATZER PFO Occluder that can help prevent recurrent ischemic strokes by closing the passageway between the atria.
This is the first device to be approved for PFO closure in order to prevent recurrent stroke in the U.S. Previous surgical interventions required open heart procedures, but the AMPLATZER PFO Occluder can b...
Source: Medgadget - November 1, 2016 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Editors Tags: Cardiac Surgery Cardiology Radiology Source Type: blogs
Populations at Moderate Altitude Have Lower Rates of Some Age-Related Diseases
Correlations are everywhere, and not all of them are meaningful. Here I'll point out a short open access paper, in PDF format only at the moment, that outlines an interesting relationship between population altitude, mortality rate, and incidence of common age-related conditions. In short, people at higher altitudes have modestly better long term health and a few years of additional life expectancy when compared with those closer to sea level - a fairly interesting outcome, and one that might spur speculation. It has to be said that there are a number of fairly straightforward relationships between location and longevity. ...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 7, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Beat2Phone Wearable ECG and Activity Tracker for AFib and More
At the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland a new device and accompanying app have been created to help identify asymptomatic atrial fibrillation, which may in turn point to therapy options to reduce the chances of an ischemic stroke. The Beat2Phone system includes a chest-worn ECG, position, and activity monitor, and an Android app that captures the readings and automatically passes them to the patient’s cardiologist.
The monitor records the heart rate and heart rate variability on a continuous basis, as well as the activity levels and whether the person is upright or laying down.
The technology has been underg...
Source: Medgadget - September 23, 2016 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Editors Tags: Cardiology Net News Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, September 19th 2016
In conclusion, we found that IS status was associated with a significant increase in Hannum DNA methylation, likely as a consequence of the accumulation of cardiovascular risk factors, and near signification with Horvath method. Patients with IS were biologically older than controls, a difference that was more obvious in young stroke. This could open up the possibility of useful new biomarker of stroke risk.
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A Profile of Kelsey Moody and Ichor Therapeutics
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2016/09/a-profile-of-kelsey-moody (Source: Fight Aging!)
Source: Fight Aging! - September 18, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Stroke Patients Tend to be Biologically Older, as Measured by DNA Methylation
In conclusion, we found that IS status was associated with a significant increase in Hannum DNA methylation, likely as a consequence of the accumulation of cardiovascular risk factors, and near signification with Horvath method. Patients with IS were biologically older than controls, a difference that was more obvious in young stroke. This could open up the possibility of useful new biomarker of stroke risk. (Source: Fight Aging!)
Source: Fight Aging! - September 17, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
EmboTrap II Clot Retriever for Acute Ischemic Stroke Cleared in Europe
Neuravi, a company out of Galway, Ireland, won the European CE Mark for its EmboTrap II Revascularization Device to treat acute ischemic stroke. The device is made to trap clots, deliver TICI 2b-3 reperfusion, and consistently grab onto the clot as it’s removed from the patient.
Based on the original EmboTrap that came to market in Europe last year, the new device is intended to treat a greater range of clot lengths via a .021″ microcatheter.
“The EmboTrap platform has been a great addition to my clinical practice. In my first nine cases using the device, I was able to get TICI 2b-3 reperfusion in one pass. ...
Source: Medgadget - September 12, 2016 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Editors Tags: Neurosurgery Radiology Source Type: blogs
A Hole in the Heart, Part II
This study looked at patients between 18 and 60 years of age who had a prior stroke or a transient ischemic attack within the prior 6 months. This was a resoundingly negative study. At two years, the 12/447 patients in the closure group suffered a recurrent stroke, while 13/462 patients in the medical therapy suffered a recurrent stroke. The trial, however, reveals one of the important chinks in the armor of the randomized control trial (RCT). Randomized control trials are only as good as the patients they enroll. Enroll the wrong patients, and the results don’t tell you much. CLOSURE-1 didn’t provide closure...
Source: The Health Care Blog - September 11, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
A Hole In the Heart, Part I
By ANISH KOKA, MD
Strokes are the third leading cause of death in the United States. 800,000 people suffer a stroke every year, and the consequences are frequently devastating. Lives are not just lost, but changed forever – speech permanently silenced, arms and legs turned into useless appendages. The brain is very expensive real estate and it is little surprise that a clot the size of a pinhead lodged in a blood vessel feeding the brain is all that is needed to wreak a devastation most fear worse than death.
Most of the time the source of the debris that results in a stroke can be readily identified, but at least one-th...
Source: The Health Care Blog - September 6, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
2 Cases of Acute Ischemic Stroke -- What is the Etiology?
Case 1.An elderly patient had sudden onset of severe hemiplegia. He had no chest symptoms. Head CT was negative. tPA (alteplase) was started and an ECG wassubsequently recorded:There are well formed QS-waves in V2 and V3, suggestive of old MI with LV aneurysm.Is the ST elevation due to LV aneurysm?Unlikely: there is too much ST elevation.V3 especially has a high T/QRS ratio, with 4 mm of T-wave divided by 7.5 mm of QRS, for a ratio of 0.55. A value in any of leads V1-V4 greater than 0.36 makes acute STEMI far more likely than LV aneurysm.However, there is alsoT-wave inversion, suggesting an open ar...
Source: Dr. Smith's ECG Blog - August 28, 2016 Category: Cardiology Authors: Steve Smith Source Type: blogs
Penumbra ’s ACE68 Reperfusion Catheter for Removing Large Intracranial Clots
Penumbra, a big name in ischemic stroke clot removal, is announcing the release of its new ACE68 Reperfusion Catheter. The company calls it its most advanced thrombectomy device, offering advanced tracking capabilities, flexibility to move through challenging vasculature, and a large lumen to grab as much of the clot as possible.
The device is used along with the Penumbra System that provides the sucking power to pull on the occlusion creating the stroke. Thanks to the large lumen, the ACE68 Reperfusion Catheter can take advantage of the full available power of the Penumbra Pump MAX and so consume some of the largest th...
Source: Medgadget - July 25, 2016 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Editors Tags: Neurology Neurosurgery Radiology Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, July 25th 2016
This study builds on preliminary findings from the first phase of the INTERSTROKE study, which identified ten modifiable risk factors for stroke in 6,000 participants from 22 countries. The full-scale INTERSTROKE study included an additional 20,000 individuals from 32 countries in Europe, Asia, America, Africa and Australia, and sought to identify the main causes of stroke in diverse populations, young and old, men and women, and within subtypes of stroke.
To estimate the proportion of strokes caused by specific risk factors, the investigators calculated the population attributable risk for each factor (PAR; an esti...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 24, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Research and Reviews in the Fastlane 143
Welcome to the 143rd edition of Research and Reviews in the Fastlane. R&R in the Fastlane is a free resource that harnesses the power of social media to allow some of the best and brightest emergency medicine and critical care clinicians from all over the world tell us what they think is worth reading from the published literature.
This edition contains 6 recommended reads. The R&R Editorial Team includes Jeremy Fried, Nudrat Rashid, Soren Rudolph, Justin Morgenstern, Anand Swaminathan and, of course, Chris Nickson. Find more R&R in the Fastlane reviews in the R&R Archive, read more about the R&R ...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - July 21, 2016 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Jeremy Fried Tags: Clinical Research Education Emergency Medicine Neurology R&R in the FASTLANE Trauma EBM literature recommendations research and reviews Source Type: blogs
Claiming Stroke Incidence to be Largely Preventable
This study builds on preliminary findings from the first phase of the INTERSTROKE study, which identified ten modifiable risk factors for stroke in 6,000 participants from 22 countries. The full-scale INTERSTROKE study included an additional 20,000 individuals from 32 countries in Europe, Asia, America, Africa and Australia, and sought to identify the main causes of stroke in diverse populations, young and old, men and women, and within subtypes of stroke.
To estimate the proportion of strokes caused by specific risk factors, the investigators calculated the population attributable risk for each factor (PAR; an esti...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 18, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
DM / DNB Cardiology Entrance New Test Series 4
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Source: Cardiophile MD - July 16, 2016 Category: Cardiology Authors: Prof. Dr. Johnson Francis, MD, DM, FACC, FRCP Edin, FRCP London Tags: Cardiology MCQ DM / DNB Cardiology Entrance Featured Source Type: blogs
A well-oiled machine.
"What you need to do," the house supervisor said to me, "is learn to lower your expectations.""F. you," I replied, with a sunny smile.We'd just gotten a patient in, a guy in his fifties who was, according who what we'd heard from the house soup, status post-TPA, hypertensive as a habit, with a dense left hemiparesis. We'd heard that from the house soup because there had been no report from the outside ED from which he'd come. There had been no warning that the patient was on his way; we'd been waiting since early afternoon and it was now five minutes from the end of the shift. Of course.Luckily, the dude could talk. Peej a...
Source: Head Nurse - June 27, 2016 Category: Nursing Authors: Jo Source Type: blogs
