Surgery for Common Heart Valve Condition in Elderly is Safe, Restores Longevity ESC statement: Cardiologists "intrigued" by novel approach to heart failure Food fried in olive or sunflower oil is not linked to heart disease

ANATOMY & PHYSIOLOGY

News

Surgery for Common Heart Valve Condition in Elderly is Safe, Restores Longevity

Monday 30th January 2012 For those involved in directing patient care, the following from UPMC is likely to be of interest - especially when it comes to dealing with more elderly patients. Heartzine's not seen the peer-reviewed paper yet, so do read the following release with that in mind:

Mitral valve repair in the elderly is safe and should be considered not as a last resort but as a treatment option for patients over 65 suffering from mitral regurgitation, according to findings of a large, multicenter study that analyzed more than 14,000 valve repair operations among this age group.

Mitral regurgitation, or a leaking mitral valve in the heart, can significantly limit long-term life expectancy and reduce quality of life due to its secondary effects. Young patients suffering from mitral regurgitation have their valves repaired as a first course of treatment. However, current treatment guidelines in elderly patients call for medical treatments to be tried first because advanced age was belie…

ESC statement: Cardiologists "intrigued" by novel approach to heart failure

Monday 30th January 2012 : The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) welcomes an "intriguing" study, published today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, featuring a completely novel approach for improving endothelial function in heart failure. In the "hypothesis generating" study, ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) delivered significant improvements in peak post ischemic blood flow in the arm, a trend for improvement in peak post ischemic blood flow in the leg, but failed to show benefits in exercise capacity and several inflammatory markers. Despite such conflicting data, ESC spokespersons believe that further exploration of UCDA is now justified in larger populations of heart failure patients.

"Although the study failed on two out of three counts , the observed improvements in post ischemic arm and leg blood flow make it highly unlikely such findings would have occurred purely by chance," says Professor Kenneth Dickstein, an ESC spokesperson. "The results a…

Food fried in olive or sunflower oil is not linked to heart disease

Tuesday 24th January 2012 : Eating food fried in olive or sunflower oil is not linked to heart disease or premature death, finds a paper published on bmj.com today.

The authors stress, however, that their study took place in Spain, a Mediterranean country where olive or sunflower oil is used for frying and their results would probably not be the same in another country where solid and re-used oils were used for frying.

In Western countries, frying is one of the most common methods of cooking. When food is fried it becomes more calorific because the food absorbs the fat of the oils.

While eating lots of fried food can increase some heart disease risk factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and obesity, a link between fried food and heart disease has not been fully investigated.

So the authors, led by Professor Pilar Guallar-Castillón from Autonomous University of Madrid, surveyed the cooking methods of 40,757 adults aged 29 to 69 over an 11-year period. N…

The benefits of cardiac resynchronisation therapy in heart failure

Monday 19th December 2011 : Heart failure remains by far the single biggest reason for acute hospital admission but is stubbornly resistant to treatment. The prognosis for heart failure has been only marginally improved by the introduction of new medical treatments in recent years, with continuing high rates of mortality and morbidity.

However, large-scale clinical trials have highlighted the beneficial effect of cardiac resynchronisation therapy (CRT) in the improvement of symptoms and reduction of mortality, and CRT is now recommended in the major European and American guidelines for the treatment and prevention of heart failure.(1)

Clinical trials, however, are performed in carefully selected subjects and their results are not always applicable to the general population. Large-scale registries or surveys, on the other hand, capture data from a much more heterogeneous population and are closer to everyday clinical practice (although the applicability of the sample may be a concern).

Now, the Eur…

Need for improved links between cardiologists and psychiatrists

Wednesday 16th November 2011: Recommendations need to be developed to establish which types of antipsychotic drugs and antidepressants should be used in different circumstances."

Mental disorder itself was not the reason for the association, but rather the drugs used to treat these patients that made sudden cardiac death more probable. Sophia Antipolis, 15 November 2011: People taking anti-psychotic drugs and anti-depressant drugs have a much higher risk of dying during an acute coronary event of a fatal arrhythmia than the rest of the population, finds a Finnish study published in the European Heart Journal. The study showed that the combined use of both antipsychotic and antidepressant drugs was associated with an even greater risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD) during a coronary event.

"We've known for some time that mental disorders increase the risk of cardiovascular mortality, but it hasn't been clearly established if psychiatric disorders, such as depression or schizophrenia, predispo…

One in six people will have a stroke, but most strokes can be prevented

Saturday 29th October 2011 : The theme of this year's World Stroke Day on 29 October is "One in Six", referring to the facts that one in six people will have a stroke at some point in their lifetime, and that a stroke will be the cause of someone's death every six seconds. These, says the World Stroke Organization (WSO), are everyday people leading everyday lives, but around 85% of them will have risk factors which, if identified, are preventable.

There are now more than one million strokes per year in Europe, and stroke, along with heart disease, cancers diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases, is a non-communicable disease whose risk is increased by cigarette smoking, an unhealthy diet, physical inactivity and excessive alcohol. Global predictions indicate that the incidence of fatal stroke (along with heart disease and cancers) will continue to rise, from around 6 million per year in 2010 to almost 8 million per year by 2030.

The European Society of Cardiology emphasises that most of these same r…

ASE-EAE to issue Guidelines for the echocardiographic evaluation of cancer patients

Thursday 20th October 2011: The European Association of Echocardiography (EAE) has announced that it is working together with the American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) to issue joint recommendations on the usefulness of serial echocardiographic evaluations and the potential impact of more advanced ultrasound technologies (in particular Speckle Tracking Echocardiography) in patients undergoing cancer therapy.

"Considering that the early detection of cardio toxicity is a critical issue for patients undergoing chemotherapy, the ASE and the EAE have come together to write guidelines which will highlight the technical advantages of echocardiography in identifying cardio toxicity early," explained Prof Juan Carlos Plana, Co-Director of the Cardio-oncology Center, Cleveland Clinic, from the ASE. "This would help select patients who would benefit from cardio protective regimens, so that heart failure does not become an obstacle to the oncologist during therapy, and to the patient during his/her survival."

Telemedical ECG Tests Would Save the NHS £120 Million Per Year and Cut Unnecessary Frequent Flyer Hospital Visits

Tuesday 11th October 2011: Telemedical ECG testing in GP surgeries could cut hundreds of thousands of unnecessary emergency hospital admissions, A&E attendances and referrals to outpatient clinics, saving the NHS over £120 million each year, according to leading cardiac telemedical service provider Broomwell Healthwatch.

Broomwell's service enables fast, accurate diagnosis of heart problems by telephone, allowing patients to receive a full 12-lead ECG test at their local GP surgery in minutes. This eliminates cardiac 'false alarms', helps to avoid the need for emergency admissions, and cuts the inconvenience and expense of patients having to travel to hospital outpatients or diagnostic centres for unnecessary tests. It also relieves pressure on secondary care resources.

Recent data from the use of Broomwell's ECG service in GP surgeries shows that it has saved nearly 30,000 referrals to hospital outpatients or diagnostic centres for tests, in turn saving over £4M for PCTs in the Greater Manchester …

Sildenafil appears safe and effective for Eisenmenger syndrome

Friday 23rd September 2011 : Eisenmenger syndrome, a shunt-related congenital heart defect which leads to pulmonary hypertension, and resulting cyanosis. Because of the nature of the disruption caused to the circulatory system and the systemic-to-pulmonary communication, the use of circulatory medication needs special attention. Sildenafil is one example of this; it has been shown to be both effective and safe for idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension, and for pulmonary arterial hypertension due to connective tissue disease. The picture for those suffering from Eisenmenger syndrome was unclear, until now.

In a study published by the journal Heart today, researchers based in China led by Professor Zhi-Cheng Jing of Tongji University School of Medicine (Shanghai) report that over a 12 month period, sildenafil treatment (oral administration) for those with Eisenmenger syndrome was both well tolerated and appeared to improve key performance measures. These include systemic arterial ox…

Use CT perfusion criteria for intra-arterial treatment

Monday 19th September 2011 : Time is of the essence when it comes to stroke treatment. But a new image guided technique could help shift the criterion from one that is determined by how long after the start of symptoms a patient receives medical care, suggests a small US study published online in the Journal of NeuroInterventional Surgery.

Whilst traditional treatment in acute ischemic stroke is based on time criteria when administering intravenous and intra-arterial therapies, recent evidence suggests that image-based criteria may be useful for selecting patients for intra-arterial interventions. In the study, researchers tested the use of CT perfusion (CTP)-based criteria, regardless of time from symptom onset, for patient selection for intra-arterial treatment of ischemic stroke.

The researchers used computed tomography perfusion (CTP) to select 53 patients who would be suitable for interventional treatment, and found no difference in the recovery time or the 90 day survival rate between those w…

Science Spotlight

Stress Mechanism in Coronary Heart Disease

Stem Cells can Repair Damaged Heart

This site does not provide any medical adivice. Do not make medical decisions without a doctor. Copyright © Heartzine.com 2011. Site monitored by QABOT free