heart disease

A Seattle-area health alliance has conducted what it calls a "community checkup," examining care for more than 1.6 million patients--and concluded that performance was below current standards on many... Read more...

> Medical technology firm Stryker Corp. is recalling some of its hip surgery products after getting a warning from regulators. Read more...

It seems that many black U.S. residents are less likely to participate in clinical studies, possibly due to distrust of physicians and fears that they might be harmed by participation, according to a... Read more...

Too often, hospital patients with ventricular arrhythmias aren't treated with defibrillators soon enough, a problem that may have an impact on their survival, according to a new study published in... Read more...

In recent times, research has raised serious questions about safety of drug-coated stents, which are used to protect patients against complications from some forms heart disease. Since then,... Read more...

Public health officials aren't quite sure why, but in California, African-Americans are dying earlier than whites, according to a new study. White Californian men are living an average of seven more... Read more...

A new study suggests that if pharmacists supervise their care, heart-failure patients tend to take their medication, spend less time in the hospital and generate fewer medical expenses. The study, lead by an investigator at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Pharmacy, looked at 314 low-income patients with heart failure. During the study, half of these patients received standard pharmacy services, but the other half received care from a specially-trained pharmacist …

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Thanks to improved treatments, including more-frequent angioplasties and effective drug use, the number of hospitalized heart attack victims who die or experience severe heart failure has dropped almost in half over the last six years. This is the conclusion drawn by an international group of researchers, who looked at heart attack care in 14 countries. The study, which is being published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that compared with six years ago, …

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It looks like high-profile cardiologist Dr. Martin Leon has been booted from the New England Journal of Medicine peer review panel for five years. His offense? He allegedly leaked results from COURAGE, a high-profile study comparing stents with drug therapy in treating stable heart disease. Article

> Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) has vowed to establish a universal healthcare system if elected president. Article

> Arkansas state officials are attempting to build the state's first trauma network, but aren't sure how they'll pay for it. Article

> Physician rating site HealthGrades …

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