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Almost all heart attack patients receive angioplasty within 90 minutes of being admitted

Almost all heart attack patients who need the emergency artery-opening procedure known as angioplasty are receiving it within 90 minutes of being admitted to the hospital, a marked improvement from five years ago when most patients waited longer for the life-saving procedure, according to a report by Yale School of Medicine researchers and their colleagues.

23 Aug 2011

Gore receives positive reports related to GORE HELEX Septal Occluder

W. L. Gore & Associates today reported that it has received zero accounts of erosion of the aortic root or the free wall of the atrium associated with the worldwide use of the GORE® HELEX® Septal Occluder.

23 Aug 2011

AstraZeneca announces availability of BRILINTA tablets in the U.S. pharmacies

AstraZeneca today announced that BRILINTA tablets, a new oral antiplatelet therapy, is now available in pharmacies in the United States.

23 Aug 2011

CHL completes $18.4-million Series B financing round

Cleveland HeartLab Inc. (CHL), a leading specialty clinical laboratory and disease management company, today announced the completion of an $18.4-million Series B financing round.

23 Aug 2011

Viewpoints: NY Times deconstructs health rulings; Issa on law & deficit; veterans' care needs boost

At a time when the nation's credit has been downgraded for the first time and our country is struggling to finance and reform existing entitlement programs, Obamacare's creation of new entitlements increases dependency on government and pushes our country deeper into a fiscal crisis of Greek proportion. As Congress and the president seek bipartisan ground to address the national debt, we must remember that the first step out of a hole is to stop digging.

23 Aug 2011

Online health records, medical devices face IT security risks

Meanwhile, iWatch News reports on how the health information sector seems especially fond of lobbying's "revolving door."

22 Aug 2011

No effective treatment yet for acute lung injury

Patients can essentially drown in their own fluids when trauma and infection prompt blood vessels to leak, flooding millions of air sacs in their lungs.

22 Aug 2011

ATGL produces key signaling molecules essential for regulation of lipid, energy metabolism

Obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases are daunting modern-day epidemics. In Western Europe more than 50% of the population is overweight and approximately 15 million people die from cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks and stroke every year. These conditions are often caused by disorders of fat metabolism, resulting in a massive accumulation of fat in various tissues and of cholesterol in the walls of arteries.

22 Aug 2011

“Maggie Goes on a Diet” raises storm of protests among experts

A picture book for children in which a pudgy 14-year-old girl gets thin enough eventually to become her school's soccer star has come under attack. The book – “Maggie Goes on a Diet” won't be released until October, but Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com are among booksellers taking advance orders for the 44-page hardcover.

22 Aug 2011

Calcium scores and heart disease risk, experts debate

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22 Aug 2011

NIH bias against African-Americans confirmed

Black scientists are significantly less likely than white scientists to win grants from the National Institutes of Health, according to an audit released Thursday. This confirmed suspicions inside the agency about a lingering bias against African-Americans.

22 Aug 2011

Research uncovers natural defense mechanism that inactivates C. diff toxins

Groundbreaking research encompassing Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and University Hospitals Case Medical Center, has uncovered a natural defense mechanism that is capable of inactivating the toxin that spreads Clostridium difficile, or C. diff, an increasingly common bacterial infection in hospitals and long-term care settings.

22 Aug 2011

Coronary stent implantation safe, feasible for infants or toddlers with ACS

Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is not a generally accepted option for infants or toddlers with acute coronary syndrome. However, a new report published in the August issue of Catheterization and Cardiovascular Interventions, a journal of The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI), found coronary stent implantation to be a feasible and safe palliative option for children fifteen months and younger.

22 Aug 2011

Radiolabeled protein reveals presence of S. aureus endocarditis in mouse model

A novel imaging probe developed by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators may make it possible to diagnose accurately a dangerous infection of the heart valves.

22 Aug 2011

Marital bliss triples long-term survival after coronary bypass surgery

Giving your heart to a supportive spouse turns out to be an excellent way to stay alive, according to new research from the University of Rochester. Happily wedded people who undergo coronary bypass surgery are more than three times as likely to be alive 15 years later as their unmarried counterparts, reports a study published online August 22 in Health Psychology, a publication of the American Psychological Association.

22 Aug 2011

Pulse oximetry can identify newborns with congenital heart disease

About 1 in every 120 babies are born with congenital heart disease (CHD), of which about 25 percent is critical, requiring special care early in life. CHD is responsible for more deaths in the first year of life than any other birth defect, but often outcomes can be improved with early detection.

22 Aug 2011

Scientists discover mechanism that helps explain why stress causes DNA damage

For years, researchers have published papers that associate chronic stress with chromosomal damage. Now researchers at Duke University Medical Center have discovered a mechanism that helps to explain the stress response in terms of DNA damage.

22 Aug 2011

NHLBI selects U-M Congenital Heart Center for clinical research

The University of Michigan Congenital Heart Center has been selected as a new Pediatric Heart Network core site for clinical research. Created and funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, the Pediatric Heart Network is a cooperative network of pediatric cardiovascular clinical research centers that conducts studies in children with congenital or acquired heart disease.

20 Aug 2011

Statin therapy may not be appropriate for certain patients at risk for stroke

For many patients, cholesterol-lowering statin drugs can reduce the risk of strokes as well as heart attacks.

20 Aug 2011

Combination of exercise and metformin less effective for people with diabetes

It's common enough for researchers to look at the impacts of prescribed drugs on the body. And if you're a diabetes researcher who believes that exercise has great benefits for those with type 2 diabetes, you're hoping your research will show that. But when Normand Boul- looked at the dual impacts of exercise and metformin - two of the most commonly-prescribed modalities for glucose control - on that very outcome, the hoped-for double whammy wasn't the result.

20 Aug 2011