Pediatric researchers have devised an innovative, safe and minimally invasive procedure that helps relieve rare but potentially life-threatening airway blockages occurring in children who had surgery for congenital heart defects. Physician-researchers developed new imaging tools to treat plastic bronchitis -- in which abnormal circulation causes lymphatic fluid to dry into solid casts that clog a child's airways.
More from Science Daily
There might be good news for millions of Americans who suffer from heart failure: A trial using gene therapy appears to have boosted patients' cardiac function.
"This type of an intervention would be the ultimate method to reconstruct damaged heart tissue so that it can be mechanically functional again," explained one expert, Dr. Justine Lachmann. She directs the Congestive Heart Failure Program at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y.
Having health insurance is a key predictor of whether Hispanics at high risk for heart disease use cholesterol-lowering medications known as statins, according to new research in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
It is one of the first studies to document differences in the use of widely prescribed statins and aspirin among diverse Hispanic and Latino populations in the United States.
Patients who have a heart rhythm disorder that can come with a high risk of stroke often don’t receive blood-thinning medications that can make this complication less likely, a U.S. study suggests.
Researchers studied almost 430,000 people with a condition known as atrial fibrillation, an irregular rapid heartbeat that can lead to stoke, heart failure and chronic fatigue.
Seductive early trial results showed massive reductions in LDL cholesterol among patients who took PCSK9 inhibitors—the new injectable cholesterol-lowering medications—including those already taking high-intensity statin therapy. Now that they are on the market, physicians are coming to terms with how to best use the costly drugs in selective patients.
Read more at tctmd
Roundtable with Jeffrey B Geske, MD; R Scott Wright, MD; Stephen L Kopecky, MD
More at Medscape
Widespread debate erupted several weeks ago when a pharmaceutical start-up bought and raised the price of a 60-year-old drug by 5,000 percent. In the face of public backlash, the company’s CEO agreed to a reduced price. And when a San Diego-based company introduced a $1 alternative, patients and the media alike celebrated. But the incident has fueled a broader public debate about the cost and value of prescription medications.
More at Institute for Patient Access
For patients, the immense value of a life-changing medication can be difficult to quantify. Yet as drug prices rise, more health insurers and policy analysts are trying to do just—create a price point based upon a medical therapy’s clinical effectiveness. But when market price doesn’t conform to analysts’ value assessment, effectiveness data can be used to justify limiting patients’ access to breakthrough treatments. Such could be the case with a new study from the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, which considers the value two new drugs for treating high cholesterol.
More at Institute for Patient Access
The National Forum for Heart Disease & Stroke Prevention is pleased that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Repatha™ (evolocumab), the second PCSK9 inhibitor to enter the market this year. This newly available therapy will serve to markedly reduce low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), or “bad cholesterol”, among patients whose elevated LDL-C levels place them at elevated risk for heart attacks and strokes. Repatha has been shown in clinical trials to significantly reduce LDL-C, with minimal side effects, among patients with cholesterol levels that are too high despite previous therapies or who have familial hyperlipidemia, an inherited high cholesterol disorder.
More at National Forum for Heart Disease & Stroke Prevention
A powerful new class of drugs promises to change the management of heart disease for high-risk patients who struggle to get their cholesterol levels under control—a group that numbers in the millions.
But only some of them are likely to get the new medicines.
More at Wall Street Journal