For the prevention of stroke in atrial fibrillation, the novel anticoagulant drugs dabigatran (Pradaxa, Boehringer Ingelheim), rivaroxaban (Xarelto, Bayer Pharma/Janssen Pharmaceuticals), apixaban (Eliquis, Pfizer/Bristol-Myers Squibb), and edoxaban (Lixiana, Daiichi-Sankyo) have been sold as both superior and more convenient than warfarin. But is this true? More than 60,000 patients have been enrolled in randomized controlled clinical […]
Category: Atrial fibrillation
I made a discovery this week about the novel anticoagulant medications, dabigatran (Pradaxa), rivaroxaban (Xarelto), apixaban (Eliquis) and edoxaban (Lixiana). I was looking into the often-asked question of how these new drugs compare to the old standard, warfarin. The discovery felt like a Eureka moment. I ran it by my stats guy–my son–and a couple […]
Just a few weeks before the 2013 American Heart Association Sessions, Shelley Wood, the managing news editor of theheart.org emailed to ask if I was up for going to the meeting. With trips to San Francisco, Denver, Athens and Amsterdam already in the books this year, I had counted 2013 as a win. I was […]
Part one of Progress in Cardiology was a sober look at the current lull in innovation. In part 2, as promised, I tell you what is right and optimistic about my field. There is a lot. The post touches on the return of the basics. Basics in doctoring and basics in therapeutics are huge new […]
On the way home from the American College of Cardiology meeting this spring, I wrote a post about the lack of real progress in Cardiology. I got to thinking: Here I was attending major meetings all over the world, and few, if any, studies struck me as game-changers. Everything seemed so painfully incremental. So many […]
On the last day of ESC2013 I attended a press conference entitled Update in Rhythmology. The purpose was to highlight four rhythm-related studies released at ESC2103. The most noteworthy of the four abstracts involved gender-related issues in atrial fibrillation therapy. French researchers used a 1.6 million patient database (including 1200 French GPs) to come up […]
A general rule about writing a story is to lead with the important stuff. I’ve reviewed each of my ESC2013 updates, and as it turns out, each day I have led with the folly. Sorry about that. I’m going to continue the trend. If you had a blog, you could do this too. Before I’m […]
Okay, I’m getting the hang of this. The Monday morning and evening commute in Amsterdam is something special. You talk about focus. It requires laser-like focus. You’ve got bikes, narrow lanes, buses, trams, pedestrians and tourists. Still though, traveling 6k by bike took 15 minutes; a cab from the convention center, more than 30. I […]
There were many good questions raised on my last post. Thanks. One particularly relevant theme concerned the relationship of atrial fibrillation (AF) and coronary artery disease (CAD). There’s a great deal of misunderstanding out there on how these two common disease relate to each other. I thought a few paragraphs might be useful. On the […]
I get a lot of questions about atrial flutter. Atrial flutter is a common arrhythmia that shares many similarities to its next of kin, AFib; but there are important differences. Let’s go over 15 basic facts and important points about atrial flutter. (In plain English.) 1. Atrial flutter is defined as a rapid but organized […]
It’s been a while since I did a Cycling Wednesday topic. As I was skimming thorough the Journal of the American Medical Association last night, I came across this review article on spinal injection therapy for low back pain. It was a shocker. Two factors brought my attention to the article: First, almost all the […]