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Cardiologists have been happily prescribing angiotensin receptor neprilysin inhibitor, sacubutril-valsartan, for heart failure with reduced ejection (HFrEF) for a while now. And the drug was…
New Guidelines for Endpoints in Valve Intervention Trials: is it an autocracy?
“History has time and again shown that unlimited power in the hands of one person or group in most cases means that others are suppressed…
Athletes’ hearts after COVID: the entity that wasn’t
2020 was a year of relatively uninformative studies about the effects of COVID on the heart as I have previously lamented. 2021 has proved more…
Colchicine and COVID-19: a Tale of Two Trials
COLCORONA was a double-blinded randomised controlled trial of over 4000 patients comparing a 30 day course of colchicine with placebo for people with COVID-19 but…
The COVID-19 vaccine rollout: Lessons from the 1947 mass vaccination for Smallpox New York City
In a February 2021 update Dr. Howard Zucker, the Commissioner of health of New York State, recalls a story of an earlier vaccination challenge that…
Should the ACC Have a Live Meeting?
The American College of Cardiology is planning to have some live participants at its annual scientific sessions meeting in May. The college said it is also partnering with a technology company to offer these participants a wearable monitoring device “as an added safety measure for monitoring possible COVID-19 symptoms.”
In my view both decisions are mistaken and send messages that are the exact opposite of what responsible medical and scientific organizations should be promulgating during the pandemic.
Chunkification of Clinical Trials: Why aren’t we adopting the Win Ratio more widely?
Most of us like our news (medical or otherwise) pre-digested into understandable chunks for consumption. This need for this is inevitable because we expect to…
Salt Intake, Life Expectancy and Mortality: A Not-So-Salty Story for the Holidays
Numerous publications attest to the observation that a high salt intake can trigger hypertensive cardiovascular disease de novo or accelerate pre-existing hypertension. For decades practicing physicians have warned their patients about excessive salt intake.
CVCT Forum 2020: An Interview with John Teerlink about Omecamtiv
What’s unique about omecamtiv? Darrel Francis speaks to GALACTIC-HF PI, John Teerlink about that dirty word in heart failure… “inotrope”. The new language is myotropes,…
CVCT Forum 2020: An Interview with Paul Armstrong about Vericiguat
Darrel Francis speaks to Paul Armstrong, PI of the VICTORIA trial, about the mechanism of new heart failure drug, Vericiguat, and the trial’s unusual power calculation: “The trial was deliberately overpowered on the primary endpoint”.