Can Statins Reduce Heart Risk? – Cardiac News Round-Up

Posted on by Kurt Jensen
Statins

Statins are a big question in cardiac care.

Kaiser Permanente proudly reported last week the increased adoption of their daily statin regimen, but is the increased use of statins positive or negative?

Kaiser Permanente "ALL" quality improvement protocol increased prescription of heart and stroke risk medication regimen by 40 percent in community health centers. (Medical News Today, June 11)

The medication regimen bundles two generic drugs - a cholesterol-lowering statin and a blood pressure-lowering drug in daily doses to patients with diabetes or heart disease.

In 2009, Kaiser Permanente released a study showing that their protocol lowers the chance of hospitalization for heart attack or stroke the following year by more than 60 percent.

Statin association with memory loss in question? (MedPage Today, June 8)

Continue reading Can Statins Reduce Heart Risk? – Cardiac News Round-Up

One simple procedural change reduces mortality in the cath lab

Posted on by Kurt Jensen

An international study published mid-March in the Lancet showed that using the wrist as an access point for heart catheterization reduced bleeding and lowered mortality rates as opposed to using the groin as an access point.

While previous studies have demonstrated that wrist access reduces incidents of bleeding, this is the first to demonstrate the connection with incidents of mortality.

The change lowers mortality at no additional cost beyond necessary additional training and expertise---insertion through the wrist is more technically demanding than insertion through the groin, as the artery is smaller.