Abbott announced the European approval and launch of its TREK(TM) Coronary Dilatation Catheter for the treatment of coronary artery disease. The TREK system represents a new approach to balloon catheter design, and provides physicians with a high-performing option for treating challenging lesions and difficult-to-reach blockages. Abbott received CE Mark for the TREK system earlier this year. The TREK family is a completely re-engineered line of balloon catheters, incorporating many advanced design and technology changes.

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Drugs to lower cholesterol and prevent heart disease, taken by millions of people worldwide, increase the risk of cataracts, kidney failure, muscle pain and liver dysfunction, a study of more than 2 million Britons found.
The findings paint a fuller picture of the long-term risks of medications known as statins, such as Pfizer Inc.’s Lipitor, the world’s top-selling drug, and AstraZeneca Plc’s Crestor, the researchers said. The study, released today by the British Medical Journal, failed to validate a range of potential benefits, other than lowering cholesterol, attributed to statins and quantified some risks.

A University of Maryland School of Pharmacy study shows that among patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD) who discharged themselves from the hospital early the treatment cost if they are readmitted runs 9 percent higher compared to CVD patients who had been formally discharged.

In first-of-its-kind research, Eberechukwu Onukwughaand colleagues studied the records of 347,572 cardiovascular patients in several Maryland hospitals from 2000 to 2005, including 19,779 who were readmitted to the same hospital for further CVD-related care.

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A paper published in the June issue of IJCP, the International Journal of Clinical Practice, shows that men with ED will often develop coronary symptoms within two to three years of impotence and actually experience a cardiovascular event, such as a heart attack, within three to five years.

The authors stress that it is vital that clinicians stabilize cardiovascular function and control any symptoms before even considering initiating any ED therapy.

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According to the University of Granada, Spanish researchers have employed for the first time adult cells extracted from a human heart to turn stem cells from adipose tissue into cardiac myocytes. In other words, they achieved to “reprogram” adult stem cells, which might improve treatments for heart disease therapeutical.

At present, the use of stem cells in treatments for heart disease is one of the most common practices. However, working with stem cells without targeting heart tissue negatively affects the efficacy of treatments. Therefore, inducing cell differentiation into cardiac muscle (cardiomyocytes) may be one of the best options in the treatment of these pathologies.

A new algorithm can now detect atrial fibrillation with a 95 accuracy. This is a huge improvement over previous methods. Atrial fibrillation, which affects about three million Americans, is an independent risk factor for death and a major cause of ischemic stroke, in which blood flow is reduced to part of the brain. Atrial Fibrillation can be treated, but it is notoriously difficult to detect. The new algorithm was developed by Ki H. Chon, PhD, head of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), in partnership with Snehraj Merchant of The ScottCare Corporation.

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