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Cumulative probability of an ischaemic incident in the brain in the closed versus not-closed groups. Credit: Image courtesy of European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Closure of the left atrial appendage during heart surgery protects the brain, according to late-breaking research presented today in a Hot Line LBCT Session at ESC Congress. The results suggest that closure should be routinely added to open heart surgery. "This is the first randomised study to show that closure of the left atrial appendage during open heart surgery effectively protects against brain infarctions and stroke," said Assoc Prof Helena Domínguez, the cardiologist who designed the study. "A stroke following open heart surgery can have devastating consequences for patients and their families," said principal investigator Dr Park-Hansen, from the Department of Cardiology at Bispebjerg/Frederiksberg University Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark. "Expectations of returning to wor...

Salt retention is the main culprit behind drug-resistant hypertension (RHTN), with older diuretic medications being the most effective treatment, according to new results from the PATHWAY-2 study. The research, presented at ESC Congress today, "will change clinical practice across the world and will help improve the blood pressure and outcomes of our patients with resistant hypertension ," said study investigator Dr Bryan Williams, Chair of Medicine at University College London, UK. "This has been a wonderful story of using sophisticated modern methods to solve an old problem -- why some patients have seemingly intractable hypertension," added Dr Morris Brown, chief investigator for the PATHWAY studies from Queen Mary University, London. "The discovery of salt overload as the underlying cause has enabled us to target the hormone which drives this, and to treat or cure most of the patients." As many as one in ten patients with high blood pressure h...

A breakthrough discovery in the field of cardiovascular fibrosis research made at Duke-NUS Medical School (Duke-NUS) and National Heart Centre Singapore (NHCS) has been licensed to a newly launched company Enleofen Bio Pte Ltd, a Singapore-funded biotechnology start-up. Enleofen Bio plans to use the intellectual property (IP) derived from the Duke-NUS and NHCS research to develop first-in-class therapeutics for the treatment of multiple fibrotic human diseases including cardiac and pulmonary fibrosis. Fibrosis is the formation of excessive connective tissue, similar to the formation of scar tissue during the healing process; however, the excessive connective tissue in fibrotic disease does not heal but rather disrupts the structure and function of the organ and tissue where it forms, rendering it diseased. This process may affect many tissues within the body and is the main pathology behind heart and renal failure. Professor Stuart Cook along with Assistant Professor Sebastian S...

In most clinical trials for cancer therapy, investigators test treatments in patients with advanced disease. But a recent cardiovascular secondary prevention study has given researchers a unique opportunity: to explore the effectiveness of giving a drug to patients before cancer emerges. At the European Society of Cardiology meeting, Paul M. Ridker, MD, director of the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at BWH, and colleagues presented findings from CANTOS (Canakinumab Anti-inflammatory Thrombosis Outcomes Study). In addition to their cardiovascular results, Ridker and colleagues shared that patients who received the anti-inflammatory therapy canakinumab had a marked reduction in the incidence of lung cancer and lung cancer mortality. In this high-risk population, death from cancer was reduced by half in the group of people who received the highest dosage of the drug. These findings are detailed in a paper published simultaneously in  The Lancet . "As an inflammator...

Investigators from Brigham and Women's Hospital today announced results of a clinical trial culminating from 25 years of cardiovascular research work. At the European Society of Cardiology meeting and in a paper published simultaneously in the  New England Journal of Medicine , Paul M. Ridker, MD, director of the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at BWH, and colleagues presented findings from CANTOS (Canakinumab Anti-inflammatory Thrombosis Outcomes Study), a trial designed to test whether reducing inflammation among people who have had a prior heart attack can reduce risk of another cardiovascular event in the future. The team reports a significant reduction in risk of recurrent heart attacks, strokes and cardiovascular death among participants who received a targeted anti-inflammatory drug that lowered inflammation but had no effects on cholesterol. "These findings represent the end game of more than two decades of research, stemming from a critical observati...

Coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG) is the best method of treating artherosclerotic coronary arteries in diabetes patients with multivessel disease, even in the presence of type 1 diabetes, a new study from Karolinska Institutet reports, clearing up a question in the current recommendation. The study is published in  Journal of the American College of Cardiology  (JACC). International guidelines recommend coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG) over the use of balloon catheters (in a process called percutaneous coronary intervention, or PCI) to widen artherosclerotic coronary arteries in diabetes patients with two or more diseased coronary vessels. However, since the underlying research has not differentiated between patients with type 2 diabetes and the less common type 1 diabetes, it has been unclear whether the recommendation applies to both types. "Since type 1 diabetes is a different disease with different complications, it's never been given that the treatment sho...