Chronic Total Occlusion PCI Is Getting Safer — At Least Until the Pandemic
ATLANTA — Percutaneous coronary intervention for chronic total occlusion (CTO PCI) has improved in success rates, but the pandemic might have impacted complication rates, a registry study showed. Technical and procedural success rates steadily improved over time from 2016 to 2021, rising from 81.6% to 88.1% and 80.0% to 87.0%, respectively (both P<0.0001). And the […]
Low-Salt Diet Helpful for HF Symptoms, But Not Necessarily for Clinical Events
WASHINGTON — A dietary intervention reduced sodium intake, but did not reduce clinical events, for people with heart failure (HF), according to the SODIUM-HF trial. Between patients randomized to a low-sodium diet or usual care for 12 months, there was no statistically significant difference in the combined outcome of cardiovascular-related admissions to hospital, cardiovascular-related emergency […]
Imagining future guilt helps athletes turn away from doping
Appealing to athletes’ sense of ‘future guilt’ through psychological intervention could prove a powerful weapon in the fight against doping, according to a new study. Researchers discovered that making elite athletes picture how guilty they might feel about using banned performance enhancing drugs produced a more powerful initial reaction than initiatives educating sportspeople about the […]
One Month of DAPT Reasonable in Patients at High Bleeding Risk
Dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) for 1 month after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) lowered bleeding rates and was non-inferior for ischemic events compared with 3-month DAPT in patients at high bleeding risk, according to results of the MASTER DAPT trial. Among the 4,579 patients in the intention-to-treat (ITT) population, major or clinically relevant non-major bleeding occurred […]
Can Education Tackle Poor Antibiotic Prescribing in Nursing Homes?
An educational intervention to cut inappropriate antibiotic use for suspected urinary tract infections (UTIs) and lower respiratory tract infections among nursing home residents with advanced dementia had a limited impact in a cluster randomized trial. The multicomponent TRAIN-AD intervention reduced such prescribing by 33% per person-year compared with usual care (adjusted marginal rate difference −0.27, […]