Heart Disease News and Research

Latest Heart Disease News and Research

Study: Chinese anesthesiologists willing to help patients quit smoking, reduce tobacco-related deaths

The statistics are frightening: one-third of the world's smokers (300 million) live in China, and chronic diseases caused by smoking are a growing burden to public health there. Current projections estimate that the number of tobacco-related deaths in China will increase to 2 million annually by 2025.

22 Jan 2010

Norepinephrine responses to bucindolol influenced by alpha-2C adrenergic receptor genotype

ARCA biopharma, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company developing genetically targeted therapies for heart failure and other cardiovascular disease, today announced that the paper “An alpha-2C-Adrenergic Receptor Polymorphism Alters the Norepinephrine Lowering Effects and Therapeutic Response of the Beta Blocker Bucindolol in Chronic Heart Failure” was published in the January 2010 edition of the peer-reviewed journal Circulation: Heart Failure (http://circheartfailure.ahajournals.org).

22 Jan 2010

MAQUET Cardiovascular to host educational symposium to optimize cardiovascular care

MAQUET Cardiovascular LLC, a leading provider of cardiovascular technologies, announced today that it will a host an educational symposium featuring leading cardiovascular surgeons who will discuss the critical issues in caring for today's cardiovascular surgery patients.

22 Jan 2010

Researchers identify new therapeutic approach for stroke treatment

For the first time, research led by Youming Lu, PhD, MD, Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans School of Medicine, has identified a novel mechanism that may trigger brain damage during stroke and identified a therapeutic approach to block it.

22 Jan 2010

Hopkins dentist offers free dental care for needy people

Celebrate late this year – the last Friday of February, almost two weeks after Valentine’s Day, Shamblott Family Dentistry will again spread goodwill and cheer to the local community with a Dentistry from the Heart (DFTH) event. This year’s DFTH will be the fourth annual event offering gifts of free fillings and extractions to the first people who show up at Dr. Scott Shamblott’s office in Hopkins.

22 Jan 2010

Findings may aid in developing therapeutic drugs for stroke and other neurodegenerative diseases

Biomedical scientists from the University of Central Florida and Louisiana State University have identified a way to block a "cell death signal" that they believe triggers brain damage during strokes.

22 Jan 2010

Thomas S. Kilduff named a Fellow of the AAAS

SRI International, an independent nonprofit research and development institute, announced today that Thomas S. Kilduff, Ph.D., director of SRI International's Center for Neuroscience, has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

22 Jan 2010

Mice study shows obesity can increase risk of developing liver cancer

Obesity comes with plenty of health risks, but there's one that's perhaps not so well known: an increased risk of developing cancer, and especially certain types of cancer like liver cancer. Now, a group of researchers reporting in the January 22nd issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication, have confirmed in mice that obesity does indeed act as a "bona fide tumor promoter." They also have good evidence to explain how that happens.

22 Jan 2010

New study shows VBID program can save money

Value-based insurance design programs — which reduce patient co-payments for highly effective treatments — can break even financially or possibly save money, according to a new study from University of Michigan, Harvard and other researchers.

22 Jan 2010

HIV infection causes premature aging of the brain

HIV infection or the treatments used to control it are prematurely aging the brain, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of California-San Diego have found.

22 Jan 2010

Reducing dietary salt can offer significant health benefits

Reducing salt in the American diet by as little as one-half teaspoon (or three grams) per day could prevent nearly 100,000 heart attacks and 92,000 deaths each year, according to a new study. Such benefits are on par with the benefits from reductions in smoking and could save the United States about $24 billion in healthcare costs, the researchers add.

21 Jan 2010

Genzyme receives PDUFA date from FDA for its Biologics License Application for Lumizyme

Genzyme Corporation announced today that it has received a June 17, 2010 PDUFA date from the FDA for its Biologics License Application for Lumizyme™ (alglucosidase alfa) seeking approval for the therapy produced at the 4000 L scale.

21 Jan 2010

FDA approves continuous-flow heart-assist device pioneered at Texas Heart Institute at SLEH

The federal Food and Drug Administration today approved a continuous-flow heart-assist device pioneered at the Texas Heart Institute (THI) at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital (SLEH) for use as a permanent treatment for advanced heart failure.

21 Jan 2010

BMEYE ccNexfin and Masimo Rainbow SET Pulse CO-Oximetry technology receive CE Mark certification

BMEYE B.V., the innovators of combined noninvasive, beat-to-beat blood pressure and cardiac output monitoring, and Masimo, the inventor of Pulse CO-Oximetry and Measure-Through Motion and Low-Perfusion pulse oximetry, jointly announce today CE Mark certification and the European launch of the BMEYE ccNexfin—the first noninvasive cardiovascular monitor with Masimo Rainbow SET Pulse CO-Oximetry technology

21 Jan 2010

U.S. Navy hospital ship reaches Haiti

Even before the U.S. Navy's hospital ship, Comfort, anchored off the coast of Haiti on Wednesday, patients who were injured in last week's earthquake were airlifted onto the ship to receive care, the Miami Herald reports (Clark, 1/21). According to the Baltimore Sun, "patients were flown in by the Navy, Coast Guard or Air Force in one of the 30 helicopters available within the ship's range. Plans for a boat-based shuttle were foiled by an earthquake aftershock that flattened the pier the Comfort had expected to use and that jolted the ship as if it had hit ground. Ship officials identified an alternate boat-landing site by midafternoon" (Little, 1/21).

21 Jan 2010

China Pharma Holdings announces completion of clinical trials for Candesartan

China Pharma Holdings, Inc., which develops, manufactures, and markets specialty pharmaceutical products in China, today announced that the Company has completed clinical trials for Candesartan, an anti-hypertension drug, and submitted the generic drug production application to the SFDA.

21 Jan 2010

Health care companies assess where they stand on health reform after election

The Wall Street Journal reports that several firms reiterated support for a health care reform bill Wednesday, a day after the overhaul's viability was called into question by the victory of Republican Sen.-elect Scott Brown in Massachusetts. "PhRMA, the drug industry association, as well as companies including Pfizer Inc., Johnson & Johnson, WellPoint Inc. and Humana Inc., voiced support for an overhaul of some kind, despite objections among insurers about the efforts to date."

21 Jan 2010

Abaxis' new CRP assay receives FDA marketing clearance

Abaxis, Inc., a medical products company manufacturing point-of-care blood analysis systems, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted 510K marketing clearance of the new C-Reactive Protein (CRP) assay when used by healthcare professionals in conjunction with the Piccolo Xpress™ point-of-care analyzer.

21 Jan 2010

Results of two pivotal Phase III clinical trials with oral FTY720 published

Results of the TRANSFORMS and FREEDOMS studies, the two pivotal Phase III clinical trials with oral FTY720 (fingolimod), have been published in The New England Journal of Medicine, providing comprehensive evidence to support the efficacy and safety profile of this first-in-class therapy for multiple sclerosis (MS).

21 Jan 2010

Benefits of NIH funding through the Recovery Act

In advance of the one-year anniversary of the Recovery and Reinvestment Act's enactment on February 17, twenty of the nation's leading research institutions, patient advocates and biomedical industry have released a detailed report on how Recovery Act funding of medical research through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is at work across the country in the service of better health and a healthier economy.

21 Jan 2010