Tag Archives: myocardial infarction

Introduction Coronary artery disease remains one of the leading causes of death in Ireland,1 the UK,2 and worldwide. Despite advances in management, it is a major source of morbidity and mortality in our healthcare system. Numerous trials (PROVE-IT,3 ISIS-1,4 ISIS-2,5 ISIS-3,6 ISIS-4,7 AIRE,8 CAPRICORN9) have established the prognostic benefits associated with adequate secondary prevention post ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines10 recommend all patients discharged post-STEMI should be offered treatment with an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor (ACEi), beta bloc

Publisher: Matador, 2015 ISBN: 9781784624729 Price: £17.99 The author describes this as a story about aviation, its risks and the heart of the pilot. It is a story told extremely well from a unique personal perspective and should have wide appeal. It is principally an autobiography charting the author’s life in aviation and cardiology, and the interface between them that deals with the impact of cardiovascular disease on a pilot’s fitness to fly. It also includes a brief history of powered flight, insights into human factors and the quantification and containment of risk, as well as some entertaining travel writing, as the author recount

Introduction Current evidence suggests there has been a marked proliferation of troponin testing within medical units as the troponin assay has become the cornerstone biomarker in the diagnosis of an acute myocardial infarction (AMI).1,2 Both troponin T (TnT) and troponin I (TnI) are cardio-specific structural subunits and highly sensitive and specific markers of myocardial injury.3,4 Newer generation high-sensitivity troponin (hs-Tn) assays can detect increasingly lower troponin concentrations within an earlier time window of up to three hours.5 Early implementation of first-generation assays were accompanied with poor patient selection; ava

Ethan B Russo Morbidity and cannabinoids Cardiovascular morbidity secondary to cannabis has been reported: THC metabolites in unexplained cardiac deaths in young people,14 and a claim of a 4.8 times increased risk of myocardial infarction (MI) in the first hour after cannabis smoking,15 but given the meteoric increase in cannabis usage over the past five decades, one might expect a commensurate public health signal, which has been quite unapparent in epidemiological studies.16,17 Cannabis smoking did decrease exercise tolerance in angina.18 While increased all-causation death rates after first MI in cannabis smokers were initially claimed,19

Introduction In recent years, the recreational use of synthetic cannabinoids has been gaining global popularity.1-5 Case reports have emerged associating these compounds with a number of adverse effects, including: embolic-appearing ischaemic strokes,6 seizures7 and acute kidney injury.8 In addition, myocardial infarction (MI) has been associated with synthetic cannabinoid use in teenagers.9,10 However, no cases have demonstrated abnormal coronary angiography. There are numerous synthetic cannabinoids, including JWH-018, JWH-073, HU-210, CP 47,497, JWH-081, JWH-122, JWH-210, and newer compounds are regularly being developed.4 A proportion of

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Introduction Approximately 4.2 million people (7.5% of population), whose racial origins are from South Asia, live in the UK. High rates of coronary disease in Asians,1-4 seem likely to be influenced by genetic factors.5 We have previously reported differences in the presentation of coronary syndromes between British South Asians, as a whole, and white Europeans.6 The term ‘South Asian’ describes around 1.5 billion people (22.5% of the world’s population), occupying regions as diverse as Sri Lanka to Nepal. A wide variety of genotypes, cultures, diets, belief systems, educational attainment, socioeconomic status and risk factors are enc

BSH Parliament day Professor Andrew Clark (President of the British Society for Heart Failure) is pictured here (centre) carrying out an echocardiogram in the House of Commons. He was at a BSH event to help raise awareness that a person diagnosed with heart failure is likely to have a worse prognosis than if they were diagnosed with most cancers. This is despite the availability of specialist heart failure services that can have a remarkable impact on a patient’s chance of survival, but for which there is inconsistent access over the UK leading to wide variations in care and outcomes. Over 60 MPs, Peers, and professional and patient groups

Dear Sirs, Research on sex difference in mortality after myocardial infarction (MI) since the 1990s has been debated and increased. Several observational studies have shown that younger women, in particular, seemed to have higher mortality rates than men of similar age during the two-year or longer follow-up, although these studies were mainly from the USA.1-3 Recent American studies have also found that, even after full adjustment for potential risk factors, excess risk for in-hospital mortality for women was still noted, particularly among those <50 years old with acute ST-segment elevation MI, leading to 98% (odds ratio [OR] 1.98, 95% c

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