CHICAGO — There are many opportunities for improving cardiovascular health that cardiologists have missed, Eric Topol, MD, said at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions.
Topol, the founder and director of Scripps Translational Research Institute and professor of molecular medicine and executive vice president of Scripps Research, who received the James B. Herrick Award of Outstanding Achievement in Clinical Cardiology from the American Heart Association, outlined a number of practices that he said cardiologists should be doing, but are not.
An American College of Cardiology

NEW YORK — Before performing ocular surgery, ophthalmologists must be aware of the link between several ophthalmic procedures and herpes recurrence, according to a speaker at OSN New York.
“Herpes is a common problem; 90% of people in the world actually have positive herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) or HSV-2, yet we often don't recognize that,” Jennifer M. Loh, MD, of Loh Ophthalmology Associates in Miami, told Healio. “And cataract surgery is also a very common surgery, right? So, if you put two and two together, we have a situation where someone could undergo cataract surgery and have a

CHICAGO — Targeting systolic blood pressure of less than 120 mm Hg more effectively reduced major cardiovascular events in patients with prior stroke or transient ischemic attack vs. a target of less than 140 mm Hg.
OPTIMAL-STROKE was the first trial to be adequately powered to determine the effects of intensive BP control on prevention of major CV events in patients with prior stroke of TIA, and the results were presented at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions and simultaneously published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
“Elevated blood pressure is the most

NEW YORK — When performed in the right candidates, corneal tissue addition keratoplasty yields high levels of satisfaction in patients with corneal ectasia, according to a speaker.
“Corneal tissue addition keratoplasty (CTAK) is a procedure where you can actually insert a custom corneal inlay that is gamma irradiated into a patient with corneal ectasia, often keratoconus, but also in post-LASIK ectasia patients,” Nandini Venkateswaran, MD, of Massachusetts Eye and Ear, told Healio at the OSN New York meeting. “Now, what are some of the pearls I have learned throughout my learning-curve

CHICAGO — Ziltivekimab, a novel interleukin-6 inhibitor, lowered inflammatory markers but not major adverse CV events compared with placebo among adults with atherosclerotic CVD and chronic kidney disease in the ZEUS trial.
“Cardiovascular inflammation is highly prevalent. It remains a mechanistically compelling therapeutic target. The CANTOS, LoDoCo2 and COLCOT trials have already proven that lowering inflammation lowers risk,” Paul M. Ridker, MD, MPH, director of the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said during a press conference at the American

CHICAGO — In patients with cardiovascular disease and high lipoprotein(a), pelacarsen did not reduce risk for major adverse CV events compared with placebo, according to results of the Lp(a)HORIZON trial.
As Healio previously reported in September, Ionis and Novartis, the developers of pelacarsen, an antisense oligonucleotide shown to reduce serum Lp(a) and the first drug specifically targeting Lp(a) to report CV outcome trial results, announced the drug failed to achieve the primary endpoint in Lp(a)HORIZON. The full results were presented at the American Heart Association Scientific

DALLAS — Use of Journavx as multimodal pain management after total knee arthroplasty may lead to higher rates of discharge without an opioid prescription, fewer opioid refills through 30 days and lower opioid exposure, according to results.
“This new pain medication has potential to be a nice tool that we can add to our multimodal pain protocols after knee replacement,” Vinod Dasa, MD, FAAOS, Irv Cahen chair of orthopedic surgery and vice chair of academic affairs and research at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, told Healio about results presented at the American Association

Two young women developed swallowing problems triggered by specific food textures. Tests revealed pharyngeal muscle incoordination, which improved for about four months after botulinum toxin treatment.

A 60-year-old man whose cheeks trembled while smiling or laughing was diagnosed with a rare form of task-specific tremor likely linked to essential tremor.

A Japanese woman experienced involuntary leg kicking only while descending stairs for decades. Normal tests eventually led doctors to diagnose rare focal task-specific dystonia.