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Cardiology Today's top 5 articles posted in April
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Cardiology Today compiled a list of the top 5 stories posted to Healio.com/Cardiology in April 2017.
This month’s highlights include periodontitis and edentulism in older women, insurance appeals and denials delaying access to PCSK9 inhibitors, standard chest-strap heart monitors vs. wrist-worn monitors, sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 inhibitors in patients with type 2 diabetes, direct oral anticoagulation in patients with atrial fibrillation and much more.
Periodontitis, edentulism linked to higher mortality but not CVD in older women
Periodontitis and edentulism in postmenopausal women are associated with increased mortality rate but not increased risk for CVD after adjusting for confounding factors, according to published findings.
Participants (n = 57,001; mean age, 68 years) were from the Women’s Health Initiative study. They were postmenopausal and had no known CVD when the history of tooth decay/loss was assessed through self-reporting.
Insurance appeals, denials delay patient access to PCSK9 inhibitors
High denial rates and long processes from insurance providers prohibit high-risk patients with familial hypercholesterolemia and clinical atherosclerotic CVD from accessing PCSK9 inhibitors, according to a paper in Clinical Cardiology.
“In addition to the patients not being treated with an appropriate medication, one of the most egregious things that’s occurring right now is that the payers, by denying these prescriptions, are undermining the patient–doctor relationship, and there used to be sanctity in that relationship. There no longer is,” Seth J. Baum, MD, FACC, FACPM, FAHA, FNLA, FASPC, chief medical officer at Excel Medical Clinical Trials, clinical affiliate professor of biomedical science at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton and president of the American Society for Preventive Cardiology, and colleagues wrote in the paper.
Standard chest-strap heart rate monitors more accurate than wrist-worn monitors
WASHINGTON — When popular wrist-worn fitness trackers were tested for accuracy to gauge heart rate across several types of exercise and intensity, standard chest-strap monitors had the greatest accuracy, researchers reported at the American College of Cardiology Scientific Session.
“As physiologic monitoring via wearables becomes more popular, we should ensure that we ascertain the accuracy of each one of these monitors before we employ them in any sort of decision making,” Marc Gillinov, MD, the Judith Dion Pyle chair in heart valve research, thoracic and cardiovascular surgery at Cleveland Clinic, told Cardiology Today.
SGLT2 inhibitors may lower risk for HF in patients with type 2 diabetes
WASHINGTON — SGLT2 inhibitors were linked to decreased risk for hospitalization for HF and death, according to findings presented at the American College of Cardiology Scientific Session.
“If you look at the clinical trial data, [HF] is actually one of the most common [CVD] complications of type 2 diabetes,” Mikhail Kosiborod, MD, professor of medicine at Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute and University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine, said in an interview with Cardiology Today. “Not only that, but it’s arguably the most morbid of [CV] complications of type 2 diabetes, because the survival of patients with type 2 diabetes who develop new [HF] is extremely poor.”
Direct oral anticoagulants may increase risk for acute MI in patients with AF
Patients with AF had double the risk for acute MI when assigned direct oral anticoagulants compared with those assigned aspirin or vitamin K antagonists, according to findings published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology.
“As regards to the possible pharmacological mechanism, it seems possible that [vitamin K antagonists] have an effect on the pathological conditions affecting angina pectoris and, as a consequence, also affect [acute] MI and have a protective effect,” Leo M. Stolk, MSc, PharmD, PhD, pharmacist, clinical pharmacologist and toxicologist at Maastricht University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, and colleagues wrote. “[Direct oral anticoagulants] (at least rivaroxaban) and also aspirin, therefore, might protect to a lesser extent against [acute] MI than [vitamin K antagonists].”