Clinical Cardiology Alert – December 1, 2019
December 1, 2019
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Dapagliflozin Treatment Improves Life Quality for Systolic Heart Failure Patients
Treatment with dapagliflozin for 12 weeks resulted in improved health status, either a reduction in NT-proBNP or improvement in quality of life measures, in systolic heart failure patients with or without type 2 diabetes mellitus.
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Value of PET Scans in Infective Endocarditis
18F-FDG PET/CT imaging in a consecutive series of patients with proven infective endocarditis was of diagnostic value in those with prosthetic value endocarditis and of prognostic value in all cases.
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Cardiac Constriction vs. Cardiac Restriction
The five Mayo Clinic Doppler echocardiographic criteria for the diagnosis of constrictive pericarditis (CP) were tested in a group of surgically confirmed CP compared to a group of cardiac biopsy proven amyloid restrictive cardiomyopathy. Interventricular septal bounce and an elevated mitral annular medial e’ were found to be the most accurate criteria, especially if used together.
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Optimizing AED Placement Locations
A study of the location of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA) compared to the location of automatic external defibrillators (AED) in Denmark showed that if the placements of AEDs more closely matched the location of OHCAs, bystander defibrillation and 30-day survival would improve.
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Anticoagulation Decisions in Atrial Fibrillation
Using the Delphi method of arriving at a consensus among clinicians concerning to whom with atrial fibrillation to recommend oral anticoagulants, the risk of stroke, the risk of hemorrhage, and patient-specific factors emerged. Many of these factors are not included in the guidelines and should be studied further.