Monthly Archives: December 2012

December 19, 2012 · 11:51 pm

Dr. Oz Features Transradial Angioplasty and Stents

Dr. Oz interviews Dr. Jennifer Tremmel about Transradial Angioplasty

Dr. Oz interviews Dr. Jennifer Tremmel about Transradial Angioplasty

Today, Dr. Oz featured cardiac catheterization, angioplasty, and stents from the wrist on his afternoon TV show. Billed as part of his series, “Dr. Oz’s Ultimate Insider’s Guide: The Newest Medical Breakthroughs,” Mehmet Oz interviewed Dr. Jennifer Tremmel, Director of Transradial Interventions at Stanford Medical Center, Clinical Director of Women’s Heart Health at Stanford Clinic and friend of Angioplasty.Org (you can read my interview with Dr. Tremmel in our Transradial Center). Continue reading →

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Filed under Media Coverage, Patients, Transradial Approach

December 12, 2012 · 1:38 pm

New Improved ACCF/AHA Guidelines Task Force: Now with Patients!

ACC/AHA LogoThe ACCF/AHA Clinical Practice Guideline Methodology Summit Report was just released, after more than a year of work. And at the top of the list of recommendations is the inclusion of a patient representative.

You can read all about this in our new patient blog, “The Activated Patient,” including comments from Drs. Deepak L. Bhatt and Ralph G. Brindis, who served on the Workgroups for this report. Continue reading →

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Filed under ACC, Patient Empowerment, Patients, Shared Decision-Making

December 7, 2012 · 6:25 pm

Unclogging Blocked Information About Angioplasty From the Wrist

Cleveland Clinic

Cleveland Clinic

A new article about transradial angioplasty (the placement of a stent using the radial artery in the wrist) appeared today in the Cleveland Clinic’s Heart & Vascular Health Blog, authored by their “Beating Edge Team.” Titled, “Unclogging Blocked Arteries Via the Wrist: Angioplasty approach may offer clinical benefits for certain patients,” the article’s purpose seems to be to familiarize patients with this new alternative approach to diagnostic angiography and angioplasty, “now being offered” at the Cleveland Clinic.

Unfortunately this short article, while supposedly an “advertisement” for wrist angioplasty, continues to promulgate several widely-held myths about the radial approach. Continue reading →

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Filed under Global Trends, Heart Attack, Media Coverage, Patient Empowerment, Patient Experience, Patients, Shared Decision-Making, Transradial Approach

December 6, 2012 · 10:53 am

The Activated Patient Blog Launches

Partnering with informed patients is a central tenant of the newly released joint 2012 Guidelines For Diagnosis and Management of Patients with Stable Ischemic Disease, as well as SCAI’s consensus update on Ad-Hoc PCI. And new studies about angioplasty and stents are being presented regularly that call for shared decision-making: for example, the OVER study, showing that endovascular repair of abdominal aortic aneurysms with stent grafts is equivalent to open surgery, the FREEDOM study discussing the options for multivessel disease in diabetic patients, and FAME 2 for the treatment of stable heart disease with significant ischemia as measured by fractional flow reserve. Patient preference comes into play in all of these. Continue reading →

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Filed under ACC, Clinical Trials / Studies, FFR, Patient Empowerment, Patient Experience, Patients, Shared Decision-Making

December 2, 2012 · 7:27 pm

Fractional Flow (Chart) Reserve

Flow Chart from Ad Hoc PCI Consensus Statement

Click to enlarge flow chart

Best medical practices for angioplasty and stent placement are a moving target because no sooner than a guideline is published it can be changed by the results of a more recent study. And the SCAI Ad Hoc PCI Consensus Statement posted online just three days ago is no exception. Continue reading →

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Filed under FAME I / FAME II, FFR, Non-Invasive Testing, Optimal Medical Therapy

December 1, 2012 · 11:17 pm

Ad Hoc Angioplasty: The Patient Is On The Table

Cardiologist and patient in cath lab

Cardiologist talks to a patient “on the table” in cath lab

Something that is “on the table” is defined as an item that is “up for discussion.” And this week The Society for Cardiac Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) issued a consensus statement about the proper use of “ad hoc PCI” — and the patient was definitely on the table, up for discussion, part of the conversation.

Since we’re into definitions, ad hoc PCI is the scenario in which a diagnostic catheterization is followed in the same session by PCI (angioplasty and stents). And this is a common scenario: in New York State, for example, 80% of all angioplasties are done in the same session as the diagnostic angiogram, although the vast majority of these are emergency or primary angioplasties, where a patient in the midst of a heart attack (or close to it) is brought into the cath lab and the blockage is opened up, saving the heart muscle and possibly the patient’s life. Continue reading →

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Filed under COURAGE, FAME I / FAME II, FFR, Heart Attack, History, Optimal Medical Therapy, Patient Empowerment, Patients, Shared Decision-Making, Stent