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Let’s stop the unnecessary treatment of heart disease
There are many reasons doctors suffer from burnout and compassion fatigue. One of the least-mentioned of these reasons is that much of what we do is so damn unnecessary. In the US, the land of excess everything, caregivers, especially cardiologists, spend most of our time treating human beings that didn’t need to have disease. Let’s be clear and honest: Lifestyle-related disease is largely unnecessary. These days, there is so much unnecessary disease that caregivers, especially cardiologists, rarely see it. We look past the obesity right to the cholesterol number and ECG. And then we pull out the prescription pad for t...
Source: Dr John M - October 3, 2014 Category: Cardiology Authors: Dr John Source Type: blogs

Throwing a cat amongst the pigeons – cancer risk – will it change our referral pattern for cardiac diagnostic testing?
The recently published retrospective Canadian study of 5 year cancer risk following heart attack in 1996-2006 seems to demonstrate a consistent 3% increased risk in cancer per 10 milliSv radiation dose when adjusted for sex, age, comorbities (but strangely, not for smoking status, nor for actual measured radiation dosage but for presumed, estimated dosage based on investigations and procedures which were billed). Nevertheless, the increased risk seems consistently increased as radiation dose increases and thus the results may be plausible. Given the average age of these patients being ~61 years, some 14% were diagnosed wit...
Source: Oz E Medicine - emergency medicine in Australia - February 16, 2011 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Gary Tags: Cardiology cancer risk diagnostic testing Source Type: blogs