March 10th, 2011
Podcast 115: Talking about the real-world use of dabigatran with Drs. Elaine Hylek and Samuel Goldhaber
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Clinical Conversations, in a collaboration with CardioExchange, has interviewed two expert working clinicians on how best to use dabigatran — a drug poised to supplant warfarin in the prevention of stroke and systemic embolism in patients with atrial fibrillation.
The wide ranging discussion with Drs. Elaine Hylek and Samuel Goldhaber includes sections on who should be on this new anticoagulant, management of the drug around surgical procedures, and promoting adherence, among others.
CardioExchange (http://www.cardioexchange.org/) is an experiment in clinical community-building, sharing information from both Journal Watch and the New England Journal of Medicine. If you’re interested in matters of the heart you should really give it a look.
Related links for this podcast:
March 2nd, 2011
Podcast 114: Guidelines for preventing cardiovascular disease in women
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
We think you’ll find this of interest. The American Heart Association last month issued revised guidelines for preventing cardiovascular disease in women.
The change that hits you right off is the title’s shift from “Evidence-Based” to “Effectiveness-Based,” emphasizing the writing committee’s belief that the way things go in clinical trials doesn’t always hold in the more chaotic environment of daily practice.
Also of note is the fact that the committee wants clinicians to take women’s reproductive histories into account (they say, interestingly, that pre-eclampsia may be taken as an indicator of underlying inflammatory processes — a kind of proxy for a failed stress test, if you will). And depression, in their view, may be a signal of vulnerability to unhealthy lifestyle choices and an indicator of how adherent to treatment the patient will be, and so a screening for that condition is in order among women presenting with cardiovascular disease.
Join our conversation with the chair of the writing committee, Dr. Lori Mosca.
Interview-related links:
January 27th, 2011
Podcast 113: Hot flashes and escitalopram
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
The SSRI escitalopram beat out a placebo in ameliorating the frequency and severity of hot flashes in menopausal women. Would cheaper SSRIs also do the trick? We talk with the first author of the JAMA paper.
Interview-related links:
January 13th, 2011
Podcast 112: MRSA guidelines from IDSA
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
The Infectious Diseases Society of American last week issued clinical practice guidelines on dealing with methicillin-resistant S. aureus infection. We interview the principal author of those guidelines, Dr. Catherine Liu of the University of California, San Francisco.
Dr. Liu responds to the criticism leveled earlier this week against all IDSA guidelines, for their apparent lack of high-level evidence to back their recommendations.
Listen in. If you have a comment, please leave it here and we’ll post it quickly.
Links related to the interview:
- IDSA guidelines in Clinical Infectious Diseases (free)
- Archives of Internal Medicine paper criticizing IDSA guidelines in general (free abstract)
- Archives of Internal Medicine editorial on the criticism (not free, but worth reading)
December 3rd, 2010
Podcast 110: ARBs (and anti-hypertensives, generally) pose no measurable cancer risk, meta-analysis shows.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
This week’s guest, Dr. Sripal Bangalore, finds no evidence that use of the standard anti-hypertensive drugs increases risks for cancer. His meta-analysis did find, however, an indication that ARBs and ACE inhibitors, when used in combination, increase risks modestly. Even with the short follow-up, Bangalore says clinicians should find reassurance in the results.
Listen in.
Interview-related links:
About the Podcast
Comments, suggestions, and story ideas welcome. Learn more about Clinical Conversations.
Follow us:
