2011 ACCF/AHA Focused Update of the Guidelines for the Management of Patients With Unstable Angina/ Non–ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction (Updating the 2007 Guideline)

Risks and Benefits of Antiplatelet Therapy in Uremic Patients

2007 Focused update of the ACC/AHA/SCAI 2005 guideline update for percutaneous coronary intervention

2009;53;1343-1382; originally published online Mar 26, 2009; J. Am. Coll. Cardiol. Rahko, Marc A. Silver, Lynne Warner Stevenson, and Clyde W. Yancy Francis, Theodore G. Ganiats, Marvin A. Konstam, Donna M. Mancini, Peter S. Mariell Jessup, William T. Abraham, Donald E. Casey, Arthur M. Feldman, Gary S. Heart and Lung Transplantation Developed in Collaboration With the International Society for Guidelines Cardiology Foundation/American Heart Association Task Force on Practice Management of Heart Failure in Adults: A Report of the American College of 2009 Focused Update: ACCF/AHA Guidelines for the Diagnosis and This information is current as of August 30, 2010 http://content.onlinejacc.org/cgi/content/full/53/15/1343 located on the World Wide Web at: The online version of this article, along with updated information and services, is

2016 ACC/AHA guideline focused update on duration of dual antiplatelet therapy in patients with coronary artery disease: A report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Clinical Practice Guidelines

Developed in Collaboration With the American Association for Thoracic Surgery, Heart Failure Society of America, and Society of Thoracic Surgeons

ACC/AHA 2008 Guideline Update on Valvular Heart Disease: Focused Update on Infective Endocarditis

To ensure that guidelines reflect current knowledge, available treatment options, and optimum medical care, existing clinical practice guideline recommendations are modified and new recommendations are added in response to new data, medications or devices. To keep pace with evolving evidence, the American College of Cardiology (ACC)/American Heart Association (AHA) Task Force on Clinical Practice Guidelines (“Task Force”) has issued this focused update to revise guideline recommendations on the basis of recently published data. This update is not based on a complete literature review from the date of previous guideline publications, but it has been subject to rigorous, multilevel review and approval, similar to the full guidelines. For specific focused update criteria and additional methodological details, please see the ACC/AHA guideline methodology manual.1 ### Modernization In response to published reports from the Institute of Medicine2,3 and ACC/AHA mandates,4–7 processes have changed leading to adoption of a “knowledge byte” format. This entails delineation of recommendations addressing specific clinical questions, followed by concise text, with hyperlinks to supportive evidence. This approach better accommodates time constraints on busy clinicians, facilitates easier access to recommendations via electronic search engines and other evolving technology (eg, smart phone apps), and supports the evolution of guidelines as “living documents” that can be …

Initial Invasive or Conservative Strategy for Stable Coronary Disease: The ISCHEMIA Trial and Its Clinical Implications

BackgroundIn patients with both heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) and coronary artery disease (CAD), whether adopting an initial invasive strategy benefits better in clinical outcomes compared with those who received an initial conservative strategy remains inconclusive.MethodsWith data from the heart failure (HF) cohort study, we analyzed patients who had HFpEF and CAD amenable to the invasive intervention using propensity score matching of 1:1 ratio to compare the initial invasive strategy and the initial conservative strategy of medical therapy alone. The primary outcome was the composite endpoints of all-cause mortality or cardiovascular hospitalization, and the secondary outcome was all-cause mortality or cardiovascular hospitalization.ResultsOf 1,718 patients, 706 were treated with the invasive strategy and 1,012 with the conservative strategy initially. Propensity score matching was used to assemble a matched cohort of 1,320 patients receiving the invasive intervention (660 patients) or the medical therapy alone (660 patients). With a follow-up of 5 years, 378 (57.3%) in the invasive-strategy group and 403 (61.1%) in the conservative-strategy group reached the primary endpoint, and there was no significant difference in the rate of the primary endpoint (P = 0.162). The initial invasive strategy only improved the secondary outcome of cardiovascular hospitalization (P = 0.035). Also, the multivariable Cox regression model revealed that antiplatelet therapy, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor/angiotensin II receptor blocker (ACEI/ARB), or statin prescription was associated with a decreased risk of the primary outcome.ConclusionIn this well-profiled, propensity-matched cohort of patients with HFpEF and CAD, the addition of invasive intervention to medical therapy did not improve the long-term composite of all-cause mortality or cardiovascular hospitalization.

This document is a compilation of the current American College of Cardiology Foundation/American Heart Association (ACCF/AHA) practice guideline recommendations for atrial fibrillation (AF) from the “ACC/AHA/ESC 2006 Guidelines for the Management of Patients With Atrial Fibrillation),”* the “2011 ACCF/AHA/HRS Focused Update on the Management of Patients With Atrial Fibrillation (Updating the 2006 Guideline)”† and the “2011 ACCF/AHA/HRS Focused Update on the Management of Patients With Atrial Fibrillation (Update on Dabigatran).”‡ Updated and new recommendations from 2011 are noted and outdated recommendations have been removed. No new evidence was reviewed, and no recommendations included herein are original to this document. The ACCF/AHA Task Force on Practice Guidelines chooses to republish the recommendations in this format to provide the complete set of practice guideline recommendations in a single resource. ### 1.1. Pharmacological and Nonpharmacological Therapeutic Options #### 1.1.1. Rate Control During AF Class I 1. Measurement of the heart rate at rest and control of the rate using …

Early Invasive Versus Initial Conservative Treatment Strategies in Octogenarians with UA/NSTEMI

The ISCHEMIA trial (International Study of Comparative Health Effectiveness With Medical and Invasive Approaches) compared an initial invasive versus an initial conservative management strategy for patients with chronic coronary disease and moderate or severe ischemia, with no major difference in most outcomes during a median of 3.2 years. Extended follow-up for mortality is ongoing. ISCHEMIA participants were randomized to an initial invasive strategy added to guideline-directed medical therapy or a conservative strategy. Patients with moderate or severe ischemia, ejection fraction ≥35%, and no recent acute coronary syndromes were included. Those with an unacceptable level of angina were excluded. Extended follow-up for vital status is being conducted by sites or through central death index search. Data obtained through December 2021 are included in this interim report. We analyzed all-cause, cardiovascular, and noncardiovascular mortality by randomized strategy, using nonparametric cumulative incidence estimators, Cox regression models, and Bayesian methods. Undetermined deaths were classified as cardiovascular as prespecified in the trial protocol. Baseline characteristics for 5179 original ISCHEMIA trial participants included median age 65 years, 23% women, 16% Hispanic, 4% Black, 42% with diabetes, and median ejection fraction 0.60. A total of 557 deaths accrued during a median follow-up of 5.7 years, with 268 of these added in the extended follow-up phase. This included a total of 343 cardiovascular deaths, 192 noncardiovascular deaths, and 22 unclassified deaths. All-cause mortality was not different between randomized treatment groups (7-year rate, 12.7% in invasive strategy, 13.4% in conservative strategy; adjusted hazard ratio, 1.00 [95% CI, 0.85-1.18]). There was a lower 7-year rate cardiovascular mortality (6.4% versus 8.6%; adjusted hazard ratio, 0.78 [95% CI, 0.63-0.96]) with an initial invasive strategy but a higher 7-year rate of noncardiovascular mortality (5.6% versus 4.4%; adjusted hazard ratio, 1.44 [95% CI, 1.08-1.91]) compared with the conservative strategy. No heterogeneity of treatment effect was evident in prespecified subgroups, including multivessel coronary disease. There was no difference in all-cause mortality with an initial invasive strategy compared with an initial conservative strategy, but there was lower risk of cardiovascular mortality and higher risk of noncardiovascular mortality with an initial invasive strategy during a median follow-up of 5.7 years. URL: https://www. gov; Unique identifier: NCT04894877.

Analysis of Recent Papers in Hypertension Jan Basile, MD, Senior Editor

Consumers' price related response in the clothing purchase decision-making process includes their expectation of price, price perception, attitude toward price and consequent behaviors. The purposes of this research are to systematically organize consumers' price related responses in the clothing purchase decision-making process, and to explain the effect of price on their purchasing. The qualitative research including shopping observation and in-depth interview was conducted. The result identified stages that showed different price related responses in clothing purchase decision-making process, and clarified each stage's characteristics. In the internal search stage, consumers recalled price information from memory and had a specific expectation about the price. This set a direction for the external search. In the external search stage, consumers selected brands or stores by a non-compensatory evaluating with an expectation of the price, and narrowed these down to several determinant alternatives by actively evaluating the products. In case a sufficient amount of price information was not recalled, the consumer established reference price through the external search. Finally, in the purchasing stage, consumers evaluated the determinant alternatives based on their compensatory evaluation. When perception of price was negative, consumers evaluate price combined with the higher criteria of clothing benefits, such as symbolic value and usability. The research is expected to contribute to predicting consumers' responses to price, and to establishing an effective pricing strategy.

BackgroundAmong patients with stable coronary disease and moderate or severe ischemia, whether clinical outcomes are better in those who receive an invasive intervention plus medical therapy than in those who receive medical therapy alone is uncertain.MethodsWe randomly assigned 5179 patients with moderate or severe ischemia to an initial invasive strategy (angiography and revascularization when feasible) and medical therapy or to an initial conservative strategy of medical therapy alone and angiography if medical therapy failed. The primary outcome was a composite of death from cardiovascular causes, myocardial infarction, or hospitalization for unstable angina, heart failure, or resuscitated cardiac arrest. A key secondary outcome was death from cardiovascular causes or myocardial infarction.ResultsOver a median of 3.2 years, 318 primary outcome events occurred in the invasive-strategy group and 352 occurred in the conservative-strategy group. At 6 months, the cumulative event rate was 5.3% in the invasive-strategy group and 3.4% in the conservative-strategy group (difference, 1.9 percentage points; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.8 to 3.0); at 5 years, the cumulative event rate was 16.4% and 18.2%, respectively (difference, −1.8 percentage points; 95% CI, −4.7 to 1.0). Results were similar with respect to the key secondary outcome. The incidence of the primary outcome was sensitive to the definition of myocardial infarction; a secondary analysis yielded more procedural myocardial infarctions of uncertain clinical importance. There were 145 deaths in the invasive-strategy group and 144 deaths in the conservative-strategy group (hazard ratio, 1.05; 95% CI, 0.83 to 1.32).ConclusionsAmong patients with stable coronary disease and moderate or severe ischemia, we did not find evidence that an initial invasive strategy, as compared with an initial conservative strategy, reduced the risk of ischemic cardiovascular events or death from any cause over a median of 3.2 years. The trial findings were sensitive to the definition of myocardial infarction that was used. (Funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and others; ISCHEMIA ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT01471522.)