Cardiovascular - January 2014 Archives

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qILZvUM3Fxg "Anytime a physician prescribes a medication, there are going to be some risks associated with that medication," says William Young, Jr., M.D., the chair of Mayo Clinic's Division of Endocrinology. Dr. Young says advertising for testosterone medications to treat so-called low T, particularly during televised sporting events, is prompting men to seek out prescriptions for a medication most of them don't need. "So successful has the marketing for this testosterone therapy been that, according to Drugs.com, an independent medicine website, sales of the testosterone gel Androgel in 2013 exceeded sales of Viagra," according to a statement from the UCLA newsroom regarding a new study of the cardiovascular risks of testosterone therapy. Journalists: Sound bites with Dr. Young are available in the downloads.   The joint study by UCLA, the National Institutes of Health and Consolidated Research Inc., found the risk of a heart attack shortly after beginning testosterone therapy roughly doubled for men under 65 with a history of heart disease. The study, in the Jan. 29 online edition of the journal PLOS ONE, is the largest to date examining heart disease in men using testosterone supplements.

Research helps identify stroke patients most at risk for mortality, treatments to reduce death rate MANKATO, Minn. — Jan. 27, 2014 — For patients who have experienced a large stroke that cuts off blood supply to a large part of the brain, the use of standardized medical management protocol and surgery to decompress swelling can improve life expectancy, Mayo Clinic researchers found in a recent study. The medical protocol provided each patient with consistent procedures for airway management, ventilator settings, blood pressure control, fluid and electrolyte management, gastrointestinal and nutritional management, hematologic monitoring and management, intracranial pressure monitoring, sedation, use of medication, anticonvulsants, prevention against deep-vein thrombosis and rehabilitation. Journalists: Sound bites with Dr. Chyatte (shy-ott) are available in the downloads. Surgery involved removing a large portion of the skull over the area of the stroke to provide extra room for the brain swelling. This reduced pressure in the head and risk of death. For surviving patients, the piece of skull was replaced via a second surgery after the brain swelling had resolved. “We discovered who – out of this patient group – was most at risk for mortality. We also determined that by using a standardized medical protocol – in other words, treating every patient in the exact same way and preparing for each issue we may encounter – we were able to reduce patient mortality by about 50 percent,” says Douglas Chyatte, M.D., a study author and neurosurgeon at Mayo Clinic Health System. “In addition, when we examined surgery, there was a positive trend in reducing mortality in this group of patients.

ROCHESTER, Minn. —Jan. 23 — Mayo Clinic Radio, part of the Mayo Clinic News Network, has begun delivering patient-centered audio programming from Mayo Clinic experts via iHeartRadio, which is a Clear Channel Broadcasting, Inc., free, all-in-one digital radio service featuring the best in talk radio. The daily Mayo Clinic Radio Health Minute series and the one-hour program, Mayo Clinic Radio, will be available 24/7 on the digital platform’s newest feature iHeartRadio Talk. “The standard for innovation in health care was set by William Worrall Mayo, M.D., 150 years ago as he began building a medical practice into what is now Mayo Clinic,” says John T. Wald, M.D., medical director, Mayo Clinic Public Affairs and Marketing. “About the same time, pioneers like Guglielmo Marconi were discovering radio signals. Today, as we look to the future of health care (#FutureOfHealthCare), iHeartRadio, with this new technology, is a natural next step for Mayo Clinic to reach patients where they are.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pz8sYK1410

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syLYiHJjnT0&feature=youtu.be&hd=1 ROCHESTER, Minn. — Jan. 21, 2014 — More people die and emergency hospital treatment takes longer for heart attack victims who arrive at the hospital during off-hours (nights and weekends), compared with patients who arrive during regular daily hours, according to a Mayo Clinic study published online in the British Medical Journal on Jan. 21. Journalists: Sound bites with Dr. Sorita are available in the downloads. Mayo Clinic researchers analyzed results of 48 studies published between 2001 and 2013 involving 1.8 million patients in the United States, Europe and Canada to assess the effect of off-hour hospital arrival for heart attack patients.

DEAR MAYO CLINIC: My mother has had deep vein thrombosis twice. I’ve heard this condition can run in families. I’m a 38-year-old woman in good health. I exercise regularly and eat well. What can I do to lower my risk of developing DVT? ANSWER: Deep vein thrombosis (DVT), happens when a blood clot forms in a vein located deep within the leg or pelvis. It is a serious condition because if the clot breaks free and travels to your lungs, it can be life-threatening. A variety of factors can raise your risk for these blood clots, including a family history of DVT, as well as recent surgery, hospitalization for a medical illness, trauma with or without fracture, obesity, immobility, and certain drugs. DVT most often happens in the large veins within the legs. If a clot in a vein comes loose, it can be carried through your body in the blood flowing back to your heart. From there, it may be pumped into your lungs. A clot that gets stuck in a blood vessel within the lungs — a condition known as a pulmonary embolism — causes sudden death in about 20 to 25 percent of cases.

U.S. FDA Approves Phase III Cardiopoietic Stem Cell Trial for Heart Failure Patients Based on a Mayo Discovery Cardio3 BioSciences, an international Mayo Clinic collaborator, has received FDA approval for a phase III pivotal clinical trial of its stem cell therapy. The trial will test the Mayo Clinic discovery of cardiopoietic (cardiogenically-instructed) stem cells designed to improve heart health in people suffering from heart failure. The multisite U.S. trial, called CHART-2, will aim to recruit 240 patients with chronic advanced symptomatic heart failure. Cardio3 BioSciences is a bioscience company in Mont-Saint-Guibert, Belgium. "Regenerative medicine is poised to transform the way we treat patients," says Andre Terzic, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Regenerative Medicine. Watch the video below to see how stem cells are being used to treat people with heart failure. Journalists: Video b-roll of today's news conference, plus sound bites with Dr. Terzic and Christian Homsy, M.D., CEO of Cardio3 BioSciences, are available in the downloads. The video pkg. is also available in the downloads in MOV format. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vumB_FW_fTA

Tobacco use remains the leading preventable cause of death in the United States and leads to a host of cancers and illnesses. A new report by the Surgeon General released today, The Health Consequences of Smoking, highlights a half a century of progress in tobacco control and prevention since the first report in 1964. The report also includes new findings on the health effects of smoking and a call to action on how to end the continuing tobacco use epidemic. Journalists: Sound bites with Dr. Hurt are available in the downloads. “We lose over 480,000 Americans every single year to tobacco-related diseases,” says Richard Hurt, M.D., director of Mayo Clinic’s Nicotine Dependence Center. “Cigarette smoke affects every organ system in the body. We’ve known for a long time that cigarette smokers have a larger number of polyps of the colon, which are the precursor to colon cancer. So it’s not a big surprise that now the committee is concluding that cigarette smoking is associated with colon cancer.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXzyJ1520cA&hd=1