Stents Work Well, But Are Costly: Will Hospitals Continue To Use Them?
...o $3,000 more than regular angioplasty. To many cardiologists and patients, that extra expense is well worthit, ... of dollars every time a stent is used. To date, cardiologists have not made decisions on whether to use a stentor not based on how much money their hospitals make...It Matters Where, In America, You Suffer A Heart Attack
...ospitalization may be due to the fact that it took cardiologists a day longer to decide to give their patients a diagnostic catheterization compared to the Pacific region, Eisenstein said. In South Central states, there was a very high rate of aggressive care during initial hospitalization (twice as much as so...Clinical Pharmacists Improve Outcomes Of Heart Failure Patients
... the frequency ofhospital re-admissions and allows cardiologists more time to devote to thenon-pharmaceutical aspects of patient care. More than 3 million Americans suffer from the debilitating effects ofheart failure, with 400,000 new cases diagnosed each year. It is estimated thatone-third of the hospit......sually composed of cardiology fellows andattending cardiologists and their rulings are final. Differences of opinion have become common as large multi-center trialsuse more subtle measurements, or endpoints, to determine the effectiveness of aparticular treatment. "It is very important for us ...Anti-Clotting Drug May Cause Potentially Fatal Platelet Disorder
.... Bennett said that most neurologists and cardiologists who prescribeticlopidine are generally unaware of this side effect, which is described as"having a rare association" in the package insert produced by the pharmaceuticalmanufacturer, Hoffmann-LaRoche of Basel, Switzerland. Ticlopidine's toxic...Keeping Score On Doctors: Report Says Flaws In Counting Must Be Addressed To Ensure Accuracy
...ts assigned byMedicare as having been cared for by cardiologists were actually admitted byinternists or family physicians. The ideal monitoring system, they say, shouldfocus on the doctors who have the greatest influence on outcome, which for heartattack is the first physician involved, since early intervention is...A major international study by cardiologists has shown that the addition oftirofiban into the medical management of patients with unstable angina reducestheir risk of death by as much as 47%. Unstable angina is currently the leadingcause of admissions to coronary care units, accounting for mor...... to prescribebeta-blockers. "Patients admitted by cardiologists and internists were muchmore likely to be discharged receiving beta-blockers than those admitted bygeneral or other types of physicians, demonstrating that opportunities forimprovement are not equal among physician groups," the researchers reported. ...Low Socio-Economic Status Heart Patients Need More Than Just Aggressive Cardiac Procedures
... Index (DASI), is aquestionnaire developed by Duke cardiologists in the mid-1980s that measures howmuch a person can do physically. The second test, called SF-36, is aquestionnaire that measures patients' perceptions of their overall health. Taken together, the results of these two tools give researchers an insig...Comprehensive Heart Failure Program At Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
...n this unique program involves making Cedars-Sinai cardiologists available toprimary care and other physicians in the community in a consultative capacity.Through this two-pronged approach, researchers hope to identify at-risk patientsmuch earlier when interventions are more effective and can often be lessinvasive...Routine Use Of Coronary Stents Found To Yield Better Outcomes, Be More Cost-Effective
...ive after sixmonths," Dr. Weaver said. "While some cardiologists have suggested that stentsare overutilized, these results support that practice and the superiority ofthese devices." Dr. Weaver continued, "At the time of the study, most patients received theJohnson & Johnson Palmaz-Shatz" stent -- the first one a...When It Comes To Heart Attacks, Size Apparently Does Matter
...not all MIs are clear-cut, however, a committee of cardiologists not involved in the patient's care must determine ... size. The DCRI, which is made up of more than 700 cardiologists and other researchers, maintains the world's largest databank of cardiovascular disease.The fact tha...Heart Valve Abnormalities Examined In Relation To Duration Of Diet Drug Use
... Working with him on the study were, from Duke, cardiologists Dr. JamesJollis, Dr. Carolyn Donovan and Dr. Joseph Kisslo, and from Wyeth-Ayerst, Dr.Ginger Constantine and Dr. Kelly Davis....Stent Procedures May Be Unnecessary In Some Heart Cases
...essions of the American College of Cardiology. The cardiologists looked at those patients who obtained 'stent-liker... was a widevariety of opinions, with 45 percent of cardiologists saying that for them, a 10percent residual narrowing represented stent-like results. "Only 1 percent...Cordis Cardiology Introduces The MINI Crown Stent
...1 mm, thus greatly reducing the potential for what cardiologists describe as dog boning," said Penn. "To minimize the risk of stent embolization, Cordis proprietary Nesting technology secures the MINI to the delivery balloon until it is deployed." "Clinical trial results show the MINI to be associated with a h...Heart Drug Finds New Use In Patients With Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome
...ifornia San Francisco. In two recent studies, UCSF cardiologists have shown that Ibutilide, a class IIIdrug approved by the FDA two years ago to treat atrial fibrillation, may be animportant tool for treating adults and children who have a congenital heartdefect, Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome (WPW), as well. The...Heart Attack Victims More Likely To Survive When Taken To High-Volume Hospitals
...s without these technologies. Patients treated by cardiologists had slightly better outcomes thanthose treated by ...d survival. Altogether, 30percent of patients had cardiologists as attending physicians, 37 percent hadinternists and about 15 percent had family practitioners. L......kers (50 percent before). These drugs aregiven by cardiologists to fight the chest pain associated with clogged arteries. "There may be good reasons for continuing to take these drugs in some cases,"says Dr. David Holmes, a Mayo Clinic cardiologist. "But we believe that thereis the potential to save people from......The study also found that "the patients treated by cardiologists wereconsiderably healthier than the patients treated by other specialists." Withthis in mind, says Dr. Shah, heart patients might consider establishing arelationship with a cardiologist who practices at a medical center that treats alarge number of h......e image of the heart in three dimensions, allowing cardiologists toperform a complete examination of the structure and function of the entire heartfrom an infinite number of views. Because the image is more anatomically correct and detailed, physicians are ableto make faster, more precise measurements, enhancing t...