In this week's BMJ, two cardiologists from the Royal Free Hospital in London suggest the evidence base is strong for changing the way people who have had a cardiac arrest outside hospital are treated. The British Heart Foundation recently stated that the number of people dying from cardiac...
The brain-preserving cooling treatment known as therapeutic hypothermia is rarely being used in patients who suffer cardiac arrest while in the hospital, despite its proven potential to improve survival and neurological function, researchers report in the June issue of Critical Care Medicine...
Heart attack patients given a combination of high-dose oral vitamins and minerals do not exhibit a significant reduction in recurrent cardiac events, according to research presented at the American College of Cardiology's 62nd Annual Scientific Session. However, the results of one component of...
More than half of British businesses do not have a defibrillator, show poll results released this week - despite the impact the device has on cardiac arrest survival rates. The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) commissioned a survey of 1,000 business decision-makers across the...
Medical literature long has touted the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids for the heart. But until now, researchers have not studied the potential benefit for people on hemodialysis, who are among the highest-risk patients for sudden cardiac death. A study published online in the journal Kidney...
Cardiac arrest risk partly depends on where a person resides, according to research presented by Dr. Paul Dorian at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress 2012 in Toronto, which was hosted by the Canadian Cardiovascular Society and the Heart and Stroke Foundation. The doctor's research of high...
Florida State University researchers led by physics doctoral student Campion Loong have achieved significant benchmarks in a study of the human cardiac protein alpha-tropomyosin, which is an essential, molecular-level component that controls the heart's contraction on every beat. Using an...
Recommendations for the practical management of CRT patients have been set out for the first time in an international consensus statement on cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) in heart failure...
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Real life interrupted the Chicago White Sox-Toronto Blue Jays game in the worst kind of way at Rogers Centre on Thursday night.
A fan sitting down the third base line was pronounced dead *at a Toronto hospital after suffering a heart attack in the seventh inning of the game. The contest was...
When a patient undergoes a cardiac catheterization procedure such as a balloon angioplasty, there's a slight risk of a stroke or other neurological complications. While the risk is extremely small, neurologists nevertheless may expect to see catheterization-induced complications because so many...
Dr Changfa Guo, Professor Chunsheng Wang and their co-investigators from Zhongshan hospital Fudan University, Shanghai, China have established a novel hyperbranched poly(amidoamine) (hPAMAM) nanoparticle based hypoxia regulated vascular endothelial growth factor (HRE-VEGF) gene therapy strategy...
When somebody's heart stops, and they are away from a hospital in a public place, two or more bystanders who apply CPR or apply CPR and help are better than just one, researchers from Kanazawa University Graduate School of Medicine, Japan, reported in the journal Resuscitation. The authors added...
Although Jehovah's Witness patients do not believe in blood transfusions, their risk of surgical complications or death after heart surgery is not greater than patients who receive blood transfusions, say researchers. The study, conducted by Gregory Pattakos, M.D., M.S., of the Cleveland...
Blocking a protein in the heart that is produced under stressful conditions could be a strategy to prevent cardiac damage that results from chemotherapy, a new study suggests. Previous research has suggested that up to a quarter of patients who receive the common chemotherapy drug doxorubicin...
Patients with mitral regurgitation, a type of valvular heart disease common in the elderly, are living longer after surgery, Yale School of Medicine researchers report in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. Surgery that replaces or repairs the mitral valve remains the...
New research from the University at Buffalo suggests that cardiologists may have a new way to identify patients who are at the highest risk of sudden cardiac arrest, and the most likely to benefit from receiving an implantable cardiac defibrillator (ICD). ICDs are used to prevent sudden cardiac...
Russians born during the Leningrad Siege in World War II, which was responsible for some of the greatest losses of civilian life in history, are giving scientists new strategies to identify people who experienced intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) and starvation during childhood at greatest...
Late breaking clinical trial results from testing of cangrelor, an investigational intravenous antiplatelet, showed patients can be "bridged" from the time that their physicians stop their oral antiplatelet drugs until they undergo cardiac surgery. Study results demonstrated cangrelor maintained...
Patients treated by physicians who billed for both technical (practice/equipment) and professional (supervision/ interpretation) components of nuclear and echocardiographic stress imaging tests were more likely to undergo such tests after coronary revascularization compared with patients of...
Residents in cardiac surgery who receive extra training on a take-home simulator do a better job once they get into the operating room, Dr. Buu-Khanh Lam today told the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress 2011, co-hosted by the Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Canadian Cardiovascular Society...