The ubiquitous communications device is proving to be a life saver, writes medical reporter ANDRÉ PICARD. Paramedics can send ECG scans to cardiologist kilometres away at the hospital who can then prepare for emergency surgery

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
February 6, 2008

Brian Doerner, drummer with the rock band Saga, was feeling unusually tired and hungry the day after a gig so he decided to scarf down some fast food and have a nap.

But, as he bit into an onion ring, his left arm went numb and he began sweating profusely - classic signs of a heart attack. Mr. Doerner's spouse, who initially thought he was joking, called 911.

Within minutes of that fateful call last October, firefighte...

 

By CARLY WEEKS
Globe and Mail
February 21, 2008 at 9:21 AM EST

People who suffer a heart attack or stroke at night and on weekends are much more likely to die than those who fall ill during regular working hours, according to new research that paints a troubling picture of the varying availability of medical treatment at hospitals.

In separate studies, researchers found a substantial difference in survival rates that suggests patients who experience some medical traumas on weekdays during business hours may have access to better treatment and care.

The results send a strong message about the varying levels of care available at different times, and could have implications for hospital staffing d...

 

Tue Oct 2, 2007 12:44pm EDT
By Megan Rauscher

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Although quite rare, heart attacks can occur in adolescents without heart defects; and a case series reported by two cardiologists from The Heart Center at Akron Children's Hospital, Ohio, serves as a of reminder this.

Reporting in the current issue of Pediatrics, Drs. John R. Lane and Giora Ben-Shachar describe nine healthy adolescents (eight boys and one girl), ages 12 to 20 years, who developed severe chest pains and met the criteria for a diagnosis of heart attack.

Eight of the patients had abnormal EKGs, all of them had abnormal cardiac enzyme levels, and three had abnormalities revealed by echocardiogram. Heart rhythm abnor...

 

By Steve Sternberg, USA TODAY
A sharp drop in heart attack deaths in more than a dozen countries coincides with global efforts to make sure patients receive proven treatments, doctors report today.
A study of 44,372 patients in the USA, Canada, Europe and South America from 1999 to 2006 found that deaths, heart failure and cardiogenic shock (when the heart goes into shock and loses pumping power) all declined in patients hospitalized for heart attacks or for life-threatening chest pain.

In 2001, the American Heart Association launched an effort to encourage doctors to follow guidelines for heart care based on the latest scientific evidence. Two years ago, the agency that pays for Medicare began docking hospitals part o...

 

Reality Doesn't Always Match the Chest-Clutching Hollywood Image
By Miranda Hitti
WebMD Medical NewsReviewed by Louise Chang, MD
Jan. 24, 2006

They call it the "Hollywood Heart Attack" -- the actor clutching his chest before keeling over. But in real life, most people are clueless about actual symptoms of a heart attack, a new poll shows.

The survey was conducted in December 2005 by Harris Interactive for PDL BioPharma, whose products include drugs to treat heart attacks.

Participants were 2,515 U.S. adults. More than half had been diagnosed with a heart attack or had a friend or family member who had had a heart attack (1,370 participants).

You might expect them to ace the surve...

 

Decrease in arterial plaque in four months almost equal to taking cholesterol drugs for 1 year
Last Updated: Friday, September 28, 2007 | 4:59 PM ET
CBC News

Treating people who suffer from obstructive sleep apnea by administering continuous positive airway pressure can lower a person's risk of heart attack and stroke, a small study suggests.

Obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA, is a condition in which a person's airway is partially or completely blocked during sleep, leading to a lack of oxygen and frequent waking. According to the study, it occurs in nine per cent of middle-aged women and 24 per cent of men.

A CT scan of a brain following a stroke. Obstructive sleep apnea is associated with an inc...

 

Michael Kahn , Reuters
Published: Monday, October 08, 2007

LONDON (Reuters) - It has been the stuff of great romantic novels and blockbuster films. Doctors have long suspected it. A study of 9,000 British civil servants has at last established it is possible to die of a 'broken heart'.

The study, reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine, found the stress and anxiety of hostile, angry relationships can boost the risk of developing heart disease. Chances of a heart attack or chest pain rose by 34 percent compared to people on good terms with a spouse or partner.

"A person's heart condition seems to be influenced by negative intimate relationships," researchers wrote. "We showed that the negative asp...

 

Science Daily — Far more of today's heart attack patients receive emergency angioplasty treatment or clot-busting drugs to re-open their clogged heart arteries than even a decade ago, a new study finds.

But 10 percent of patients who could benefit from this urgent treatment -- which is known to save lives and prevent lasting damage to the heart muscle -- don't get it at all, the study shows.

And the chance of missing out on lifesaving emergency treatment was highest among those patients whose heart attack symptoms don't include typical symptoms like chest pain, those who didn't reach the hospital until six or more hours after the start of their attack, women, people over age 75, and non-white people.

The...

 

DALLAS -- May 21, 1997 -- Constant exposure to second-hand smoke -- in the workplace or at home -- nearly doubles the risk of having a heart attack, a landmark study of more than 32,000 women suggests. Results of the research appear in yesterday’s (May 20) American Heart Association journal Circulation.

Boston scientists say their 10-year investigation involving female nurses found a higher level of risk from passive smoking than has been seen before and provides the strongest evidence yet that exposure to smoke in the workplace is as dangerous as exposure at home.

Healthy, non-smoking nurses who said they were regularly exposed to "passive" smoking by their co-workers or home companions had a 91 percent higher rela...

 

Mar 8/06
by Nicolle Wahl

If your day isn’t complete without four jumbo lattes with extra foam, the effect that caffeine has on your ticker could depend on your DNA.

A new study led by researchers at the University of Toronto suggests that people with a certain version of a gene that allows caffeine to linger in their bodies may be at higher risk for a heart attack than people whose genes remove caffeine from their body quickly. But since no commercial test exists to tell coffee drinkers what version of the gene they carry, the researchers recommend limiting caffeine consumption to the equivalent of two cups of coffee per day.

“Of all the studies that have been conducted to date that looked at the ef...

 

People who have suffered a heart attack and are battling depression may be able to reduce the risk of a second attack by taking antidepressants, a study published in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry has found.

The study concluded that heart attack survivors with depression who took antidepressants in the group called serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs), were less likely to suffer a subsequent heart attack and also had a reduced risk of death, compared to similar people who did not take antidepressants. SSRI's include such medications as citalopram, fluoxetine, paroxetine and sertraline.

"The results basically show that these medications are very useful for patients who have had heart attacks and are depre...

 

July 3, 2007
By Michelle Miron

It’s about the size and weight of an iPod, it’s implanted in the chest like a pacemaker, and Kalamazoo-based cardiologist Dr. Tim Fischell says it has the potential to prevent 70 percent of the heart attacks that now occur worldwide each year.

Fischell said Thursday that the Guardian is the most exciting of more than 200 medical products he’s invented or co-invented with his brother and father over the past several years. With a projected worldwide market value of some $10 billion yearly, he said, the patented product also has the most commercial potential.

The basis for his enthusiasm? If, as he expects, the Guardian moves its way through clinical trials to Food and D...