More articles from Interpreting Key Trials
- Update in perioperative cardiac medicine 2021
New light on preoperative assessment and on the need for anticoagulation.
- The role of ISCHEMIA in stable ischemic heart disease
Decisions regarding treatment of stable ischemic heart disease must remain individualized.
- Renal denervation: What happened, and why?
Despite promising initial results, this treatment failed in its largest trial to date. Is it dead? Can it be revived?
- Interpreting SPRINT: How low should you go?
In treating hypertension, lower systolic pressure is better than higher—but with caveats.
- A new class of drugs for systolic heart failure: The PARADIGM-HF study
Valsartan-sacubitril is the first new drug in over a decade to decrease death rates in patients with systolic heart failure.
- The METEOR trial: No rush to repair a torn meniscus
Many patients who have osteoarthritis of the knee and a torn meniscus can defer surgery and undergo physical therapy instead.
- Bone mineral density testing: Is a T score enough to determine the screening interval?
Although a trial found that women with normal or only slightly low results need not come back for another 15 years, it may not be so simple.
- Is niacin ineffective? Or did AIM-HIGH miss its target?
The AIM-HIGH trial (Atherothrombosis Intervention in Metabolic Syndrome With Low HDL/High Triglycerides: Impact on Global Health Outcomes) found, in an interim analysis, no cardiovascular benefit from taking extended-release niacin (Niaspan). In fact, there was a trend toward a greater risk of ischemic stroke, which did not reach statistical significance. But questions remain about this complex trial, which included intensive statin therapy in the active-treatment group and the control group.
- Understanding the CREST results
For patients with carotid artery stenosis, percutaneous intervention with stenting is as good as surgery—with some qualifications.
- Treating silent reflux disease does not improve poorly controlled asthma
A recent multicenter trial indicated that empirically prescribing a proton pump inhibitor does not help control asthma symptoms and that current guidelines need to be reevaluated.