Cardiology News

SAN FRANCISCO — More than a quarter of pregnant or postpartum patients who screened positive for cardiovascular disease ended up with a cardiovascular disease diagnosis when providers used a risk screening tool built into the electronic medical records system for all patients, according to research presented at the annual clinical and scientific meeting of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. “Timely diagnosis of cardiovascular disease is critical, though challenging, since pregnancy is a state of hemodynamic stress with symptoms that are like those of cardiovascular disease, and healthcare providers may not suspect cardiovascular disease in pregnant patients with symptoms of it,” Kevin Flatley, MD, a resident ob.gyn. at Montefiore Health System and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, told attendees at the conference. “The cardiovascular risk assessment tool proved valuable for identifying and providing individualized care for cardio-obstetric patients.”

The study senior author, Diana S. Wolfe, MD, MPH, associate division director of Maternal Fetal Medicine at Montefiore Health System and associate professor of medicine in cardiology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, said in an interview that cardiovascular risk in Montefiore’s urban population is significant.

“Cardiovascular disease risk screening identifies true cardiac disease in this population and can change the medical management and outcome of pregnant and postpartum patients,” Dr. Wolfe said. Screening has the potential to decrease maternal morbidity and mortality in our country, she said.

Dawnette Lewis, MD, MPH, director of the Center for Maternal Health at Northwell Health and an ob.gyn. and maternal fetal medicine specialist who was not involved in the study, was impressed with the research.

“We know that cardiovascular disease is one of the leading causes of maternal mortality,” Dr. Lewis said in an interview. “It is important to have an accurate risk assessment score, so I think what is being presented in this abstract is great.” She said she’s aware that other cardio-obstetric programs across the country are also implementing cardiovascular risk assessment tools during pregnancy.

The researchers built into their electronic health records a screening algorithm developed by the California Maternal Quality Care Initiative that had been based on a retrospective review of cardiovascular maternal deaths in California from 2002 to 2006. Their study aimed to identify the true positives — those who actually had cardiovascular disease — of those determined to be at risk by the screening toolkit.

The institution’s goal was for all patients to undergo a screening risk assessment at least once during prenatal and/or postpartum visits. Patients were considered to screen positive if they had at least one symptom, at least one vital sign abnormality, and at least one risk factor, or any combination of these that added up to 4.

Symptoms in the screening tool included shortness of breath, shortness of breath while lying flat, a rapid heart rate, asthma that was unresponsive to therapy, palpitations, fainting or other loss of consciousness, and chest pain. Abnormal vital signs included a resting heart rate of 110 bpm or greater, systolic blood pressure of 140 mm Hg or higher, a respiratory rate of 24 or higher, and an oxygen saturation of 96% or lower.

Risk factors included being 40 or older, being Black, having a pre-pregnancy BMI of 35 or greater, preexisting diabetes, hypertension, substance use, and a history of cancer, chemotherapy, or chest radiation. “Current practice acknowledges that the risk factor currently included in the algorithm of self-identified as Black actually represents racism, bias, and social determinants of health, known risk factors for CVD,” Wolfe said.

Patients who screened positive underwent an echocardiogram, a cardio-obstetric consultation, and an additional work-up.

During the June 2022–September 2023 study period, 148 out of 1877 screened patients (7.9%) had a positive screen. Of these, 108 were false positives and 40 (27%) were true positives. The number of true false positives is not known because many women did not come for their workups.* The true positives mostly included patients with mild valvular disease, but about a quarter had mild, moderate, or severe ventricular dilation or hypertrophy and a little less than a quarter were positive for systolic or diastolic dysfunction.

Most (72.5%) of the 40 true-positive cases needed a multidisciplinary cardio-obstetrics team plan, and 11 patients (27.5%) needed follow-up and had multiple visits with the cardio-obstetrics team. Six of the true-positive cases (15%) “were deemed to be of higher risk for decompensation during labor and required detailed plans for intrapartum and postpartum management,” the researchers reported. Nine patients (22.5%) began new cardiovascular medications.

This research is a validation study of the current algorithm, Wolfe said, and the algorithm will be revised based on the results of the completed validation study.

“The objective is universal cardiovascular risk screening for all pregnant and postpartum persons in the US,” Wolfe said. “Once the data collection from this validation study is concluded, our goal is to disseminate a revised CVD risk screening tool that can be implemented into the electronic medical records of all institutions in our country.”

*The study partially funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development award #5R21HD101783. All the authors and Dr. Lewis had no disclosures. Dr. Afshan B. Hameed of the University of California at Irvine was a partner in the study.

*This study was updated on May 30, 2024.

SAN FRANCISCO — More than a quarter of pregnant or postpartum patients who screened positive for cardiovascular disease ended up with a cardiovascular disease diagnosis when providers used a risk screening tool built into the electronic medical records system for all patients, according to research presented at the annual clinical and scientific meeting of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. “Timely diagnosis of cardiovascular disease is critical, though challenging, since pregnancy is a state of hemodynamic stress with symptoms that are like those of cardiovascular disease, and healthcare providers may not suspect cardiovascular disease in pregnant patients with symptoms of it,” Kevin Flatley, MD, a resident ob.gyn. at Montefiore Health System and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, told attendees at the conference. “The cardiovascular risk assessment tool proved valuable for identifying and providing individualized care for cardio-obstetric patients.”

The study senior author, Diana S. Wolfe, MD, MPH, associate division director of Maternal Fetal Medicine at Montefiore Health System and associate professor of medicine in cardiology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, said in an interview that cardiovascular risk in Montefiore’s urban population is significant.

“Cardiovascular disease risk screening identifies true cardiac disease in this population and can change the medical management and outcome of pregnant and postpartum patients,” Dr. Wolfe said. Screening has the potential to decrease maternal morbidity and mortality in our country, she said.

Dawnette Lewis, MD, MPH, director of the Center for Maternal Health at Northwell Health and an ob.gyn. and maternal fetal medicine specialist who was not involved in the study, was impressed with the research.

“We know that cardiovascular disease is one of the leading causes of maternal mortality,” Dr. Lewis said in an interview. “It is important to have an accurate risk assessment score, so I think what is being presented in this abstract is great.” She said she’s aware that other cardio-obstetric programs across the country are also implementing cardiovascular risk assessment tools during pregnancy.

The researchers built into their electronic health records a screening algorithm developed by the California Maternal Quality Care Initiative that had been based on a retrospective review of cardiovascular maternal deaths in California from 2002 to 2006. Their study aimed to identify the true positives — those who actually had cardiovascular disease — of those determined to be at risk by the screening toolkit.

The institution’s goal was for all patients to undergo a screening risk assessment at least once during prenatal and/or postpartum visits. Patients were considered to screen positive if they had at least one symptom, at least one vital sign abnormality, and at least one risk factor, or any combination of these that added up to 4.

Symptoms in the screening tool included shortness of breath, shortness of breath while lying flat, a rapid heart rate, asthma that was unresponsive to therapy, palpitations, fainting or other loss of consciousness, and chest pain. Abnormal vital signs included a resting heart rate of 110 bpm or greater, systolic blood pressure of 140 mm Hg or higher, a respiratory rate of 24 or higher, and an oxygen saturation of 96% or lower.

Risk factors included being 40 or older, being Black, having a pre-pregnancy BMI of 35 or greater, preexisting diabetes, hypertension, substance use, and a history of cancer, chemotherapy, or chest radiation. “Current practice acknowledges that the risk factor currently included in the algorithm of self-identified as Black actually represents racism, bias, and social determinants of health, known risk factors for CVD,” Wolfe said.

Patients who screened positive underwent an echocardiogram, a cardio-obstetric consultation, and an additional work-up.

During the June 2022–September 2023 study period, 148 out of 1877 screened patients (7.9%) had a positive screen. Of these, 108 were false positives and 40 (27%) were true positives. The number of true false positives is not known because many women did not come for their workups.* The true positives mostly included patients with mild valvular disease, but about a quarter had mild, moderate, or severe ventricular dilation or hypertrophy and a little less than a quarter were positive for systolic or diastolic dysfunction.

Most (72.5%) of the 40 true-positive cases needed a multidisciplinary cardio-obstetrics team plan, and 11 patients (27.5%) needed follow-up and had multiple visits with the cardio-obstetrics team. Six of the true-positive cases (15%) “were deemed to be of higher risk for decompensation during labor and required detailed plans for intrapartum and postpartum management,” the researchers reported. Nine patients (22.5%) began new cardiovascular medications.

This research is a validation study of the current algorithm, Wolfe said, and the algorithm will be revised based on the results of the completed validation study.

“The objective is universal cardiovascular risk screening for all pregnant and postpartum persons in the US,” Wolfe said. “Once the data collection from this validation study is concluded, our goal is to disseminate a revised CVD risk screening tool that can be implemented into the electronic medical records of all institutions in our country.”

*The study partially funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development award #5R21HD101783. All the authors and Dr. Lewis had no disclosures. Dr. Afshan B. Hameed of the University of California at Irvine was a partner in the study.

*This study was updated on May 30, 2024.

SAN FRANCISCO — More than a quarter of pregnant or postpartum patients who screened positive for cardiovascular disease ended up with a cardiovascular disease diagnosis when providers used a risk screening tool built into the electronic medical records system for all patients, according to research presented at the annual clinical and scientific meeting of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. “Timely diagnosis of cardiovascular disease is critical, though challenging, since pregnancy is a state of hemodynamic stress with symptoms that are like those of cardiovascular disease, and healthcare providers may not suspect cardiovascular disease in pregnant patients with symptoms of it,” Kevin Flatley, MD, a resident ob.gyn. at Montefiore Health System and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, told attendees at the conference. “The cardiovascular risk assessment tool proved valuable for identifying and providing individualized care for cardio-obstetric patients.”

The study senior author, Diana S. Wolfe, MD, MPH, associate division director of Maternal Fetal Medicine at Montefiore Health System and associate professor of medicine in cardiology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, said in an interview that cardiovascular risk in Montefiore’s urban population is significant.

“Cardiovascular disease risk screening identifies true cardiac disease in this population and can change the medical management and outcome of pregnant and postpartum patients,” Dr. Wolfe said. Screening has the potential to decrease maternal morbidity and mortality in our country, she said.

Dawnette Lewis, MD, MPH, director of the Center for Maternal Health at Northwell Health and an ob.gyn. and maternal fetal medicine specialist who was not involved in the study, was impressed with the research.

“We know that cardiovascular disease is one of the leading causes of maternal mortality,” Dr. Lewis said in an interview. “It is important to have an accurate risk assessment score, so I think what is being presented in this abstract is great.” She said she’s aware that other cardio-obstetric programs across the country are also implementing cardiovascular risk assessment tools during pregnancy.

The researchers built into their electronic health records a screening algorithm developed by the California Maternal Quality Care Initiative that had been based on a retrospective review of cardiovascular maternal deaths in California from 2002 to 2006. Their study aimed to identify the true positives — those who actually had cardiovascular disease — of those determined to be at risk by the screening toolkit.

The institution’s goal was for all patients to undergo a screening risk assessment at least once during prenatal and/or postpartum visits. Patients were considered to screen positive if they had at least one symptom, at least one vital sign abnormality, and at least one risk factor, or any combination of these that added up to 4.

Symptoms in the screening tool included shortness of breath, shortness of breath while lying flat, a rapid heart rate, asthma that was unresponsive to therapy, palpitations, fainting or other loss of consciousness, and chest pain. Abnormal vital signs included a resting heart rate of 110 bpm or greater, systolic blood pressure of 140 mm Hg or higher, a respiratory rate of 24 or higher, and an oxygen saturation of 96% or lower.

Risk factors included being 40 or older, being Black, having a pre-pregnancy BMI of 35 or greater, preexisting diabetes, hypertension, substance use, and a history of cancer, chemotherapy, or chest radiation. “Current practice acknowledges that the risk factor currently included in the algorithm of self-identified as Black actually represents racism, bias, and social determinants of health, known risk factors for CVD,” Wolfe said.

Patients who screened positive underwent an echocardiogram, a cardio-obstetric consultation, and an additional work-up.

During the June 2022–September 2023 study period, 148 out of 1877 screened patients (7.9%) had a positive screen. Of these, 108 were false positives and 40 (27%) were true positives. The number of true false positives is not known because many women did not come for their workups.* The true positives mostly included patients with mild valvular disease, but about a quarter had mild, moderate, or severe ventricular dilation or hypertrophy and a little less than a quarter were positive for systolic or diastolic dysfunction.

Most (72.5%) of the 40 true-positive cases needed a multidisciplinary cardio-obstetrics team plan, and 11 patients (27.5%) needed follow-up and had multiple visits with the cardio-obstetrics team. Six of the true-positive cases (15%) “were deemed to be of higher risk for decompensation during labor and required detailed plans for intrapartum and postpartum management,” the researchers reported. Nine patients (22.5%) began new cardiovascular medications.

This research is a validation study of the current algorithm, Wolfe said, and the algorithm will be revised based on the results of the completed validation study.

“The objective is universal cardiovascular risk screening for all pregnant and postpartum persons in the US,” Wolfe said. “Once the data collection from this validation study is concluded, our goal is to disseminate a revised CVD risk screening tool that can be implemented into the electronic medical records of all institutions in our country.”

*The study partially funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development award #5R21HD101783. All the authors and Dr. Lewis had no disclosures. Dr. Afshan B. Hameed of the University of California at Irvine was a partner in the study.

*This study was updated on May 30, 2024.

Welcome everyone. I’m Dr. John White. I’m the chief medical officer at WebMD. Does your biologic sex impact your health? Does it have any play in how you’re diagnosed, how you’re treated in terms of what symptoms you have? Of course it does. We all know that. But that’s not something that many people believed 5, 10 years ago, certainly not 20 years ago. And it was only because of leaders like my guest today, Phyllis Greenberger, who really championed the need for research on women’s health. She has a new book out, which I love. It’s called Sex Cells: the Fight to Overcome Bias and Discrimination in Women’s Healthcare. Please welcome my very good friend, Phyllis Greenberger.

Thank you.

Phyllis, It’s great to see you today.

It’s great to see you as well.

Now, you and I have been talking about this for easily 2 decades.

At least.

And some people think, oh, of course it makes sense. Although I saw you disagreeing that not everyone still believes that. But what has been that journey? Why has it been so hard to make people understand, as you point out early on in your book, women are not smaller men?

I think the basic reason was that it was just believed that men and women were the same except for their reproductive organs. So minus the reproductive organs, whether it was a device, a diagnostic, or therapeutic, if it was used and successful on a male, that it would be successful on a female. We’re really very far from understanding the differences, and there’s still a lot of distrust and disbelief and ignorance about it. And so there’s still a long way to go.

But you talk about that in the book, that there’s still a long way to go. Why is that? What’s the biggest obstacle? Is it just misinformation, lack of information? People don’t understand the science? There’s still resistance in some areas. Why is that?

I think it’s misinformation, and I gave a presentation, I don’t know how many years ago, at least 20 years ago, about the curriculum. And at the time, there was no women’s health in the curriculum. It was health. So if it was on cardiovascular issues or on osteoporosis, it was sort of the basic. And at the time, there would maybe be one woman whose job was women’s health, and she’d have an office, and otherwise there was nothing. And maybe they talked about breast cancer, who knows. But I spoke to someone just the other day, in view of all the attention that the book is getting now, whether that’s changed, whether it’s necessary and required. And she said it’s not. So, it’s not necessarily on the curriculum of all research and medical institutions, and even if women’s health, quote unquote, is on the curriculum, it doesn’t mean that they’re really looking at sex differences. And the difference is obvious. I mean, gender is really, it’s a social construct, but biological sex is how disease occurs and develops. And so if you’re not looking, and because there’s so little research now on sex differences that I don’t even know, I mean, how much you could actually teach.

So what needs to change? This book is a manifesto in many ways in how we need to include women; we need to make research more inclusive of everyone. But we’re not there yet. So what needs to change, Phyllis?

During this whole saga of trying to get people to listen to me and to the society, we really started out just looking at clinical trials and that, as you mentioned, I mean, there are issues in rural communities. There’s travel issues for women and child care. There’s a lot of disbelief or fear of clinical trials in some ethnicities. I do think, going to the future, that technology can help that. I mean, if people have broadband, which of course is also an issue in rural areas.

What could women do today? What should women listeners hear and then be doing? Should they be saying something to their doctor? Should they be asking specific questions? When they interact with the health care system, how can they make sure they’re getting the best care that’s appropriate for them when we know that sex cells matter?

Well, that’s a good question. It depends on, frankly, if your doctor is aware of this, if he or she has learned anything about this in school, which, I had already said, we’re not sure about that because research is still ongoing and there’s so much we don’t know. So I mean, you used to think, or I used to think, that you go to, you want a physician who’s older and more experienced. But now I think you should be going to a physician who’s younger and hopefully has learned about this, because the physicians that were educated years ago and have been practicing for 20, 30 years, I don’t know how much they know about this, whether they’re even aware of it.

Phyllis, you are a woman of action. You’ve lived in the DC area. You have championed legislative reforms, executive agendas. What do you want done now? What needs to be changed today? The curriculum is going to take time, but what else needs to change?

That’s a good question. I mean, if curriculum is going to take a while and you can ask your doctor if he prescribes the medication, whether it’s been tested on women, but then if it hasn’t been tested on women, but it’s the only thing that there is for your condition, I mean, so it’s very difficult. The Biden administration, as you know, just allocated a hundred million dollars for women’s health research.

What do you hope to accomplish with this book?

Well, what I’m hoping is that I spoke to someone at AMWA and I’m hoping — and AMWA is an association for women medical students. And I’m hoping that’s the audience. The audience needs to be. I mean, obviously everybody that I know that’s not a doctor that’s read it, found it fascinating and didn’t know a lot of the stuff that was in it. So I think it’s an interesting book anyway, and I think women should be aware of it. But really I think it needs to be for medical students.

And to your credit, you built the Society for Women’s Health Research into a powerful force in Washington under your tenure in really promoting the need for Office of Women’s Health and Research in general. The book is entitled Sex Cells, the Fight to Overcome Bias and Discrimination in Women’s Healthcare. Phyllis Greenberger, thank you so much for all that you’ve done for women’s health, for women’s research. We wouldn’t be where we are today if it wasn’t for you. So thanks.

Thank you very much, John. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity.

Dr. Whyte, is chief medical officer, WebMD, New York, NY. He has disclosed no relevant financial relationships. Ms. Greenberger is a women’s health advocate and author of “Sex Cells: The Fight to Overcome Bias and Discrimination in Women’s Healthcare”

This interview originally appeared on WebMD on May 23, 2024. A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com .

Welcome everyone. I’m Dr. John White. I’m the chief medical officer at WebMD. Does your biologic sex impact your health? Does it have any play in how you’re diagnosed, how you’re treated in terms of what symptoms you have? Of course it does. We all know that. But that’s not something that many people believed 5, 10 years ago, certainly not 20 years ago. And it was only because of leaders like my guest today, Phyllis Greenberger, who really championed the need for research on women’s health. She has a new book out, which I love. It’s called Sex Cells: the Fight to Overcome Bias and Discrimination in Women’s Healthcare. Please welcome my very good friend, Phyllis Greenberger.

Thank you.

Phyllis, It’s great to see you today.

It’s great to see you as well.

Now, you and I have been talking about this for easily 2 decades.

At least.

And some people think, oh, of course it makes sense. Although I saw you disagreeing that not everyone still believes that. But what has been that journey? Why has it been so hard to make people understand, as you point out early on in your book, women are not smaller men?

I think the basic reason was that it was just believed that men and women were the same except for their reproductive organs. So minus the reproductive organs, whether it was a device, a diagnostic, or therapeutic, if it was used and successful on a male, that it would be successful on a female. We’re really very far from understanding the differences, and there’s still a lot of distrust and disbelief and ignorance about it. And so there’s still a long way to go.

But you talk about that in the book, that there’s still a long way to go. Why is that? What’s the biggest obstacle? Is it just misinformation, lack of information? People don’t understand the science? There’s still resistance in some areas. Why is that?

I think it’s misinformation, and I gave a presentation, I don’t know how many years ago, at least 20 years ago, about the curriculum. And at the time, there was no women’s health in the curriculum. It was health. So if it was on cardiovascular issues or on osteoporosis, it was sort of the basic. And at the time, there would maybe be one woman whose job was women’s health, and she’d have an office, and otherwise there was nothing. And maybe they talked about breast cancer, who knows. But I spoke to someone just the other day, in view of all the attention that the book is getting now, whether that’s changed, whether it’s necessary and required. And she said it’s not. So, it’s not necessarily on the curriculum of all research and medical institutions, and even if women’s health, quote unquote, is on the curriculum, it doesn’t mean that they’re really looking at sex differences. And the difference is obvious. I mean, gender is really, it’s a social construct, but biological sex is how disease occurs and develops. And so if you’re not looking, and because there’s so little research now on sex differences that I don’t even know, I mean, how much you could actually teach.

So what needs to change? This book is a manifesto in many ways in how we need to include women; we need to make research more inclusive of everyone. But we’re not there yet. So what needs to change, Phyllis?

During this whole saga of trying to get people to listen to me and to the society, we really started out just looking at clinical trials and that, as you mentioned, I mean, there are issues in rural communities. There’s travel issues for women and child care. There’s a lot of disbelief or fear of clinical trials in some ethnicities. I do think, going to the future, that technology can help that. I mean, if people have broadband, which of course is also an issue in rural areas.

What could women do today? What should women listeners hear and then be doing? Should they be saying something to their doctor? Should they be asking specific questions? When they interact with the health care system, how can they make sure they’re getting the best care that’s appropriate for them when we know that sex cells matter?

Well, that’s a good question. It depends on, frankly, if your doctor is aware of this, if he or she has learned anything about this in school, which, I had already said, we’re not sure about that because research is still ongoing and there’s so much we don’t know. So I mean, you used to think, or I used to think, that you go to, you want a physician who’s older and more experienced. But now I think you should be going to a physician who’s younger and hopefully has learned about this, because the physicians that were educated years ago and have been practicing for 20, 30 years, I don’t know how much they know about this, whether they’re even aware of it.

Phyllis, you are a woman of action. You’ve lived in the DC area. You have championed legislative reforms, executive agendas. What do you want done now? What needs to be changed today? The curriculum is going to take time, but what else needs to change?

That’s a good question. I mean, if curriculum is going to take a while and you can ask your doctor if he prescribes the medication, whether it’s been tested on women, but then if it hasn’t been tested on women, but it’s the only thing that there is for your condition, I mean, so it’s very difficult. The Biden administration, as you know, just allocated a hundred million dollars for women’s health research.

What do you hope to accomplish with this book?

Well, what I’m hoping is that I spoke to someone at AMWA and I’m hoping — and AMWA is an association for women medical students. And I’m hoping that’s the audience. The audience needs to be. I mean, obviously everybody that I know that’s not a doctor that’s read it, found it fascinating and didn’t know a lot of the stuff that was in it. So I think it’s an interesting book anyway, and I think women should be aware of it. But really I think it needs to be for medical students.

And to your credit, you built the Society for Women’s Health Research into a powerful force in Washington under your tenure in really promoting the need for Office of Women’s Health and Research in general. The book is entitled Sex Cells, the Fight to Overcome Bias and Discrimination in Women’s Healthcare. Phyllis Greenberger, thank you so much for all that you’ve done for women’s health, for women’s research. We wouldn’t be where we are today if it wasn’t for you. So thanks.

Thank you very much, John. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity.

Dr. Whyte, is chief medical officer, WebMD, New York, NY. He has disclosed no relevant financial relationships. Ms. Greenberger is a women’s health advocate and author of “Sex Cells: The Fight to Overcome Bias and Discrimination in Women’s Healthcare”

This interview originally appeared on WebMD on May 23, 2024. A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com .

Welcome everyone. I’m Dr. John White. I’m the chief medical officer at WebMD. Does your biologic sex impact your health? Does it have any play in how you’re diagnosed, how you’re treated in terms of what symptoms you have? Of course it does. We all know that. But that’s not something that many people believed 5, 10 years ago, certainly not 20 years ago. And it was only because of leaders like my guest today, Phyllis Greenberger, who really championed the need for research on women’s health. She has a new book out, which I love. It’s called Sex Cells: the Fight to Overcome Bias and Discrimination in Women’s Healthcare. Please welcome my very good friend, Phyllis Greenberger.

Thank you.

Phyllis, It’s great to see you today.

It’s great to see you as well.

Now, you and I have been talking about this for easily 2 decades.

At least.

And some people think, oh, of course it makes sense. Although I saw you disagreeing that not everyone still believes that. But what has been that journey? Why has it been so hard to make people understand, as you point out early on in your book, women are not smaller men?

I think the basic reason was that it was just believed that men and women were the same except for their reproductive organs. So minus the reproductive organs, whether it was a device, a diagnostic, or therapeutic, if it was used and successful on a male, that it would be successful on a female. We’re really very far from understanding the differences, and there’s still a lot of distrust and disbelief and ignorance about it. And so there’s still a long way to go.

But you talk about that in the book, that there’s still a long way to go. Why is that? What’s the biggest obstacle? Is it just misinformation, lack of information? People don’t understand the science? There’s still resistance in some areas. Why is that?

I think it’s misinformation, and I gave a presentation, I don’t know how many years ago, at least 20 years ago, about the curriculum. And at the time, there was no women’s health in the curriculum. It was health. So if it was on cardiovascular issues or on osteoporosis, it was sort of the basic. And at the time, there would maybe be one woman whose job was women’s health, and she’d have an office, and otherwise there was nothing. And maybe they talked about breast cancer, who knows. But I spoke to someone just the other day, in view of all the attention that the book is getting now, whether that’s changed, whether it’s necessary and required. And she said it’s not. So, it’s not necessarily on the curriculum of all research and medical institutions, and even if women’s health, quote unquote, is on the curriculum, it doesn’t mean that they’re really looking at sex differences. And the difference is obvious. I mean, gender is really, it’s a social construct, but biological sex is how disease occurs and develops. And so if you’re not looking, and because there’s so little research now on sex differences that I don’t even know, I mean, how much you could actually teach.

So what needs to change? This book is a manifesto in many ways in how we need to include women; we need to make research more inclusive of everyone. But we’re not there yet. So what needs to change, Phyllis?

During this whole saga of trying to get people to listen to me and to the society, we really started out just looking at clinical trials and that, as you mentioned, I mean, there are issues in rural communities. There’s travel issues for women and child care. There’s a lot of disbelief or fear of clinical trials in some ethnicities. I do think, going to the future, that technology can help that. I mean, if people have broadband, which of course is also an issue in rural areas.

What could women do today? What should women listeners hear and then be doing? Should they be saying something to their doctor? Should they be asking specific questions? When they interact with the health care system, how can they make sure they’re getting the best care that’s appropriate for them when we know that sex cells matter?

Well, that’s a good question. It depends on, frankly, if your doctor is aware of this, if he or she has learned anything about this in school, which, I had already said, we’re not sure about that because research is still ongoing and there’s so much we don’t know. So I mean, you used to think, or I used to think, that you go to, you want a physician who’s older and more experienced. But now I think you should be going to a physician who’s younger and hopefully has learned about this, because the physicians that were educated years ago and have been practicing for 20, 30 years, I don’t know how much they know about this, whether they’re even aware of it.

Phyllis, you are a woman of action. You’ve lived in the DC area. You have championed legislative reforms, executive agendas. What do you want done now? What needs to be changed today? The curriculum is going to take time, but what else needs to change?

That’s a good question. I mean, if curriculum is going to take a while and you can ask your doctor if he prescribes the medication, whether it’s been tested on women, but then if it hasn’t been tested on women, but it’s the only thing that there is for your condition, I mean, so it’s very difficult. The Biden administration, as you know, just allocated a hundred million dollars for women’s health research.

What do you hope to accomplish with this book?

Well, what I’m hoping is that I spoke to someone at AMWA and I’m hoping — and AMWA is an association for women medical students. And I’m hoping that’s the audience. The audience needs to be. I mean, obviously everybody that I know that’s not a doctor that’s read it, found it fascinating and didn’t know a lot of the stuff that was in it. So I think it’s an interesting book anyway, and I think women should be aware of it. But really I think it needs to be for medical students.

And to your credit, you built the Society for Women’s Health Research into a powerful force in Washington under your tenure in really promoting the need for Office of Women’s Health and Research in general. The book is entitled Sex Cells, the Fight to Overcome Bias and Discrimination in Women’s Healthcare. Phyllis Greenberger, thank you so much for all that you’ve done for women’s health, for women’s research. We wouldn’t be where we are today if it wasn’t for you. So thanks.

Thank you very much, John. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity.

Dr. Whyte, is chief medical officer, WebMD, New York, NY. He has disclosed no relevant financial relationships. Ms. Greenberger is a women’s health advocate and author of “Sex Cells: The Fight to Overcome Bias and Discrimination in Women’s Healthcare”

This interview originally appeared on WebMD on May 23, 2024. A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com .

It sounds like a gimmick. Drink a couple glasses of wine and feel only half as intoxicated as you normally would — and sustain less damage to your liver and other organs.

But that’s the promise of a new gel, developed by researchers in Switzerland, that changes how the body processes alcohol. The gel has been tested in mice so far, but the researchers hope to make it available to people soon. The goal: To protect people from alcohol-related accidents and chronic disease — responsible for more than three million annual deaths worldwide.

“It is a global, urgent issue,” said study coauthor Raffaele Mezzenga, PhD, a professor at ETH Zürich, Switzerland.

The advance builds on a decades-long quest among scientists to reduce the toxicity of alcohol, said Che-Hong Chen, PhD, a molecular biologist at Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford, California, who was not involved in the study. Some probiotic-based products aim to help process alcohol’s toxic byproduct acetaldehyde in the gut, but their effects seem inconsistent from one person to another, Dr. Chen said. Intravenous infusions of natural enzyme complexes, such as those that mimic liver cells to speed up alcohol metabolism, can actually produce some acetaldehyde, mitigating their detoxifying effects.

“Our method has the potential to fill the gap of most of the approaches being explored,” Dr. Mezzenga said. “We hope and plan to move to clinical studies as soon as possible.” 

Usually, the liver processes alcohol, causing the release of toxic acetaldehyde followed by less harmful acetic acid. Acetaldehyde can cause DNA damage, oxidative stress, and vascular inflammation. Too much acetaldehyde can increase the risk for cancer.

But the gel catalyzes the breakdown of alcohol in the digestive tract, converting about half of it into acetic acid. Only the remaining 45% enters the bloodstream and becomes acetaldehyde.

“The concentration of acetaldehyde will be decreased by a factor of more than two and so will the ‘intoxicating’ effect of the alcohol,” said Dr. Mezzenga.

Ideally, someone would ingest the gel immediately before or when consuming alcohol. It’s designed to continue working for several hours.

Some of the mice received one serving of alcohol, while others were served regularly for 10 days. The gel slashed their blood alcohol level by 40% after half an hour and by up to 56% after 5 hours compared with a control group given alcohol but not the gel. Mice that consumed the gel also had less liver and intestinal damage.

“The results, both the short-term behavior of the mice and in the long term for the preservation of organs, were way beyond our expectation,” said Dr. Mezzenga.

Casual drinkers could benefit from the gel. However, the gel could also lead people to consume more alcohol than they would normally to feel intoxicated, Dr. Chen said.
 

Bypassing a Problematic Pathway

A liver enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) converts alcohol to acetaldehyde before a second enzyme called aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH2) helps process acetaldehyde into acetic acid. But with the gel, alcohol transforms directly to acetic acid in the digestive tract.

“This chemical reaction seems to bypass the known biological pathway of alcohol metabolism. That’s new to me,” said Dr. Chen, a senior research scientist at Stanford and country director at the Center for Asian Health Research and Education Center. The processing of alcohol before it passes through the mucous membrane of the digestive tract is “another novel aspect,”Dr. Chen said.

To make the gel, the researchers boil whey proteins — also found in milk — to produce stringy fibrils. Next, they add salt and water to cause the fibrils to crosslink, forming a gel. The gel gets infused with iron atoms, which catalyze the conversion of alcohol into acetic acid. That conversion relies on hydrogen peroxide, the byproduct of a reaction between gold and glucose, both of which are also added to the gel.

A previous version of the technology used iron nanoparticles, which needed to be “digested down to ionic form by the acidic pH in the stomach,” said Dr. Mezzenga. That process took too long, giving alcohol more time to cross into the bloodstream. By “decorating” the protein fibrils with single iron atoms, the researchers were able to “increase their catalytic efficiency,” he added.
 

What’s Next?

With animal studies completed, human clinical studies are next. How soon that could happen will depend on ethical clearance and financial support, the researchers said.

An “interesting next step,” said Dr. Chen, would be to give the gel to mice with a genetic mutation in ALDH2. The mutation makes it harder to process acetaldehyde, often causing facial redness. Prevalent among East Asian populations, the mutation affects about 560 million people and has been linked to Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Chen’s lab found a chemical compound that can increase the activity of ADH2, which is expected to begin phase 2 clinical trials this year.
 

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

It sounds like a gimmick. Drink a couple glasses of wine and feel only half as intoxicated as you normally would — and sustain less damage to your liver and other organs.

But that’s the promise of a new gel, developed by researchers in Switzerland, that changes how the body processes alcohol. The gel has been tested in mice so far, but the researchers hope to make it available to people soon. The goal: To protect people from alcohol-related accidents and chronic disease — responsible for more than three million annual deaths worldwide.

“It is a global, urgent issue,” said study coauthor Raffaele Mezzenga, PhD, a professor at ETH Zürich, Switzerland.

The advance builds on a decades-long quest among scientists to reduce the toxicity of alcohol, said Che-Hong Chen, PhD, a molecular biologist at Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford, California, who was not involved in the study. Some probiotic-based products aim to help process alcohol’s toxic byproduct acetaldehyde in the gut, but their effects seem inconsistent from one person to another, Dr. Chen said. Intravenous infusions of natural enzyme complexes, such as those that mimic liver cells to speed up alcohol metabolism, can actually produce some acetaldehyde, mitigating their detoxifying effects.

“Our method has the potential to fill the gap of most of the approaches being explored,” Dr. Mezzenga said. “We hope and plan to move to clinical studies as soon as possible.” 

Usually, the liver processes alcohol, causing the release of toxic acetaldehyde followed by less harmful acetic acid. Acetaldehyde can cause DNA damage, oxidative stress, and vascular inflammation. Too much acetaldehyde can increase the risk for cancer.

But the gel catalyzes the breakdown of alcohol in the digestive tract, converting about half of it into acetic acid. Only the remaining 45% enters the bloodstream and becomes acetaldehyde.

“The concentration of acetaldehyde will be decreased by a factor of more than two and so will the ‘intoxicating’ effect of the alcohol,” said Dr. Mezzenga.

Ideally, someone would ingest the gel immediately before or when consuming alcohol. It’s designed to continue working for several hours.

Some of the mice received one serving of alcohol, while others were served regularly for 10 days. The gel slashed their blood alcohol level by 40% after half an hour and by up to 56% after 5 hours compared with a control group given alcohol but not the gel. Mice that consumed the gel also had less liver and intestinal damage.

“The results, both the short-term behavior of the mice and in the long term for the preservation of organs, were way beyond our expectation,” said Dr. Mezzenga.

Casual drinkers could benefit from the gel. However, the gel could also lead people to consume more alcohol than they would normally to feel intoxicated, Dr. Chen said.
 

Bypassing a Problematic Pathway

A liver enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) converts alcohol to acetaldehyde before a second enzyme called aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH2) helps process acetaldehyde into acetic acid. But with the gel, alcohol transforms directly to acetic acid in the digestive tract.

“This chemical reaction seems to bypass the known biological pathway of alcohol metabolism. That’s new to me,” said Dr. Chen, a senior research scientist at Stanford and country director at the Center for Asian Health Research and Education Center. The processing of alcohol before it passes through the mucous membrane of the digestive tract is “another novel aspect,”Dr. Chen said.

To make the gel, the researchers boil whey proteins — also found in milk — to produce stringy fibrils. Next, they add salt and water to cause the fibrils to crosslink, forming a gel. The gel gets infused with iron atoms, which catalyze the conversion of alcohol into acetic acid. That conversion relies on hydrogen peroxide, the byproduct of a reaction between gold and glucose, both of which are also added to the gel.

A previous version of the technology used iron nanoparticles, which needed to be “digested down to ionic form by the acidic pH in the stomach,” said Dr. Mezzenga. That process took too long, giving alcohol more time to cross into the bloodstream. By “decorating” the protein fibrils with single iron atoms, the researchers were able to “increase their catalytic efficiency,” he added.
 

What’s Next?

With animal studies completed, human clinical studies are next. How soon that could happen will depend on ethical clearance and financial support, the researchers said.

An “interesting next step,” said Dr. Chen, would be to give the gel to mice with a genetic mutation in ALDH2. The mutation makes it harder to process acetaldehyde, often causing facial redness. Prevalent among East Asian populations, the mutation affects about 560 million people and has been linked to Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Chen’s lab found a chemical compound that can increase the activity of ADH2, which is expected to begin phase 2 clinical trials this year.
 

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

It sounds like a gimmick. Drink a couple glasses of wine and feel only half as intoxicated as you normally would — and sustain less damage to your liver and other organs.

But that’s the promise of a new gel, developed by researchers in Switzerland, that changes how the body processes alcohol. The gel has been tested in mice so far, but the researchers hope to make it available to people soon. The goal: To protect people from alcohol-related accidents and chronic disease — responsible for more than three million annual deaths worldwide.

“It is a global, urgent issue,” said study coauthor Raffaele Mezzenga, PhD, a professor at ETH Zürich, Switzerland.

The advance builds on a decades-long quest among scientists to reduce the toxicity of alcohol, said Che-Hong Chen, PhD, a molecular biologist at Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford, California, who was not involved in the study. Some probiotic-based products aim to help process alcohol’s toxic byproduct acetaldehyde in the gut, but their effects seem inconsistent from one person to another, Dr. Chen said. Intravenous infusions of natural enzyme complexes, such as those that mimic liver cells to speed up alcohol metabolism, can actually produce some acetaldehyde, mitigating their detoxifying effects.

“Our method has the potential to fill the gap of most of the approaches being explored,” Dr. Mezzenga said. “We hope and plan to move to clinical studies as soon as possible.” 

Usually, the liver processes alcohol, causing the release of toxic acetaldehyde followed by less harmful acetic acid. Acetaldehyde can cause DNA damage, oxidative stress, and vascular inflammation. Too much acetaldehyde can increase the risk for cancer.

But the gel catalyzes the breakdown of alcohol in the digestive tract, converting about half of it into acetic acid. Only the remaining 45% enters the bloodstream and becomes acetaldehyde.

“The concentration of acetaldehyde will be decreased by a factor of more than two and so will the ‘intoxicating’ effect of the alcohol,” said Dr. Mezzenga.

Ideally, someone would ingest the gel immediately before or when consuming alcohol. It’s designed to continue working for several hours.

Some of the mice received one serving of alcohol, while others were served regularly for 10 days. The gel slashed their blood alcohol level by 40% after half an hour and by up to 56% after 5 hours compared with a control group given alcohol but not the gel. Mice that consumed the gel also had less liver and intestinal damage.

“The results, both the short-term behavior of the mice and in the long term for the preservation of organs, were way beyond our expectation,” said Dr. Mezzenga.

Casual drinkers could benefit from the gel. However, the gel could also lead people to consume more alcohol than they would normally to feel intoxicated, Dr. Chen said.
 

Bypassing a Problematic Pathway

A liver enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) converts alcohol to acetaldehyde before a second enzyme called aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH2) helps process acetaldehyde into acetic acid. But with the gel, alcohol transforms directly to acetic acid in the digestive tract.

“This chemical reaction seems to bypass the known biological pathway of alcohol metabolism. That’s new to me,” said Dr. Chen, a senior research scientist at Stanford and country director at the Center for Asian Health Research and Education Center. The processing of alcohol before it passes through the mucous membrane of the digestive tract is “another novel aspect,”Dr. Chen said.

To make the gel, the researchers boil whey proteins — also found in milk — to produce stringy fibrils. Next, they add salt and water to cause the fibrils to crosslink, forming a gel. The gel gets infused with iron atoms, which catalyze the conversion of alcohol into acetic acid. That conversion relies on hydrogen peroxide, the byproduct of a reaction between gold and glucose, both of which are also added to the gel.

A previous version of the technology used iron nanoparticles, which needed to be “digested down to ionic form by the acidic pH in the stomach,” said Dr. Mezzenga. That process took too long, giving alcohol more time to cross into the bloodstream. By “decorating” the protein fibrils with single iron atoms, the researchers were able to “increase their catalytic efficiency,” he added.
 

What’s Next?

With animal studies completed, human clinical studies are next. How soon that could happen will depend on ethical clearance and financial support, the researchers said.

An “interesting next step,” said Dr. Chen, would be to give the gel to mice with a genetic mutation in ALDH2. The mutation makes it harder to process acetaldehyde, often causing facial redness. Prevalent among East Asian populations, the mutation affects about 560 million people and has been linked to Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Chen’s lab found a chemical compound that can increase the activity of ADH2, which is expected to begin phase 2 clinical trials this year.
 

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

Patients at least 75 years old saw a reduced risk of overall cardiovascular incidence with statin therapy without increased risk of severe adverse effects in a study published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

“Of note, the benefits and safety of statin therapy were consistently found in adults aged 85 years or older,” wrote the authors, led by Wanchun Xu, a PhD student with the Department of Family Medicine and Primary Care, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, in the Special Administrative Region, China.

Geriatrician Jerry H. Gurwitz, MD, the Dr. John Meyers Professor in Primary Care Medicine at UMass Chan Medical School in Boston, said he found the results of this trial “remarkable,” but is awaiting the results of the much-anticipated randomized, controlled PREVENTABLE trial years from now for more definitive evidence.
 

Little Consensus on Statins for This Age Group

Prescribing statins for primary prevention of CVD in the most senior patient groups has been controversial. There is little consensus as patients in this age group have been underrepresented in randomized controlled trials.

Major guidelines for use of statins in the primary prevention of CVD, including the US Preventive Services Task Force, exclude specific guidance for statin use in patients older than 75, citing insufficient evidence.

Ms. Xu and colleagues used territory-wide electronic health records in a sequential target trial emulation comparing matched cohorts that did or did not start statins. There were 42,680 matched person-trials in the group of patients aged 75-84 years and 5,390 matched person-trials in the 85 and older group. The average follow-up was 5.3 years and people with CVDs at baseline, such as coronary heart disease, were excluded. Patients who met indications for statin initiation from January 2008 to December 2015 were included.

Risk Reduction Seen in Both Senior Groups

Of the 42,680 matched person-trials in the 75-84 age group, 9676 developed cardiovascular disease; of the 5390 in the 85-plus group, 1600 developed CVD.

In the younger cohort, the 5-year reduced risk for overall CVD incidence when statin therapy was initiated was 1.20% (95% CI, 0.57%-1.82%) in the intention-to-treat (ITT) analysis; 5.00% (95% CI, 1.11%-8.89%) in the per protocol (PP) analysis.

Reduced risk for overall CVD incidence in the 85-and-older group when statins were initiated was 4.44% in the ITT analysis (95% CI, 1.40%-7.48%); and 12.50% in the PP analysis (95% CI, 4.33%-20.66%). There was no significantly increased risk for liver dysfunction or myopathies in either age group, the authors stated.

One of the biggest strengths of the study is the use of population-based data over a long period. One of the limitations was that the researchers were not able to measure lifestyle factors such as diet and physical activity in their analysis.

Dr. Gurwitz, who has done drug research in older adults for decades, said “the results are very compelling,” and in the oldest group “almost too compelling. Wow.”

Numbers Needed to Treat Are Strikingly Low

He noted that the authors thoroughly acknowledge limitations of the trial. But he also pointed to the impressive number needed to treat reported by the researchers.

The authors stated: “[O]n the basis of the estimated absolute risk reduction in the PP analysis, the number needed to treat [NNT] to prevent 1 CVD event in 5 years was 20 (95% CI, 11-90) in those aged 75-84 years and 8 (95% CI, 5-23) in those aged 85 years or older.”

For perspective, he said, “Sometimes you’re seeing numbers needed to treat for vaccinations of 400 to prevent one hospitalization. They are using real-world information and they are seeing this remarkable effect. If it’s that good in the real world, it’s going to be even better in a clinical trial. That’s why I have some reservations about whether it’s really that good.”

Dr. Gurwitz said, “I’m not ready to start an 87-year-old on statin therapy who hasn’t been on it before for primary prevention, despite the results of this very well done study.” He will await the findings of PREVENTABLE, which aims to enroll 20,000 people at least 75 years old to look at statin use. But in the meantime, he will discuss the Xu et al. results and other evidence with patients if they request statins and may prescribe them as part of shared decision making.

He said the question of whether to use statins in primary prevention is similar to the question of whether to use aspirin as primary prevention for CVD in older adults.

Originally, “Most of us thought, yes, it’s probably a good thing,” he said, but now “there have been a lot of deprescribing efforts to get older people off of aspirin.

“In the United States, believe it or not, 48% of people 75 and older are on statins already,” Dr. Gurwitz said. “Maybe that’s good,” he said, but added physicians won’t know for sure until PREVENTABLE results are in.

“If I didn’t already know the PREVENTABLE trial was going on, and it was never going to happen, I would find this [Xu et al. study] very influential,” Dr. Gurwitz said. “I’m willing to wait.”

The study was funded by the Health and Medical Research Fund, Health Bureau, the Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China. Coauthors reported grants from the Kerry Group Kuok Foundation, the Malaysian College of Family Physicians, and the International Association of Chinese Nephrologists in Hong Kong. Dr. Gurwitz reported no relevant financial relationships.

Patients at least 75 years old saw a reduced risk of overall cardiovascular incidence with statin therapy without increased risk of severe adverse effects in a study published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

“Of note, the benefits and safety of statin therapy were consistently found in adults aged 85 years or older,” wrote the authors, led by Wanchun Xu, a PhD student with the Department of Family Medicine and Primary Care, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, in the Special Administrative Region, China.

Geriatrician Jerry H. Gurwitz, MD, the Dr. John Meyers Professor in Primary Care Medicine at UMass Chan Medical School in Boston, said he found the results of this trial “remarkable,” but is awaiting the results of the much-anticipated randomized, controlled PREVENTABLE trial years from now for more definitive evidence.
 

Little Consensus on Statins for This Age Group

Prescribing statins for primary prevention of CVD in the most senior patient groups has been controversial. There is little consensus as patients in this age group have been underrepresented in randomized controlled trials.

Major guidelines for use of statins in the primary prevention of CVD, including the US Preventive Services Task Force, exclude specific guidance for statin use in patients older than 75, citing insufficient evidence.

Ms. Xu and colleagues used territory-wide electronic health records in a sequential target trial emulation comparing matched cohorts that did or did not start statins. There were 42,680 matched person-trials in the group of patients aged 75-84 years and 5,390 matched person-trials in the 85 and older group. The average follow-up was 5.3 years and people with CVDs at baseline, such as coronary heart disease, were excluded. Patients who met indications for statin initiation from January 2008 to December 2015 were included.

Risk Reduction Seen in Both Senior Groups

Of the 42,680 matched person-trials in the 75-84 age group, 9676 developed cardiovascular disease; of the 5390 in the 85-plus group, 1600 developed CVD.

In the younger cohort, the 5-year reduced risk for overall CVD incidence when statin therapy was initiated was 1.20% (95% CI, 0.57%-1.82%) in the intention-to-treat (ITT) analysis; 5.00% (95% CI, 1.11%-8.89%) in the per protocol (PP) analysis.

Reduced risk for overall CVD incidence in the 85-and-older group when statins were initiated was 4.44% in the ITT analysis (95% CI, 1.40%-7.48%); and 12.50% in the PP analysis (95% CI, 4.33%-20.66%). There was no significantly increased risk for liver dysfunction or myopathies in either age group, the authors stated.

One of the biggest strengths of the study is the use of population-based data over a long period. One of the limitations was that the researchers were not able to measure lifestyle factors such as diet and physical activity in their analysis.

Dr. Gurwitz, who has done drug research in older adults for decades, said “the results are very compelling,” and in the oldest group “almost too compelling. Wow.”

Numbers Needed to Treat Are Strikingly Low

He noted that the authors thoroughly acknowledge limitations of the trial. But he also pointed to the impressive number needed to treat reported by the researchers.

The authors stated: “[O]n the basis of the estimated absolute risk reduction in the PP analysis, the number needed to treat [NNT] to prevent 1 CVD event in 5 years was 20 (95% CI, 11-90) in those aged 75-84 years and 8 (95% CI, 5-23) in those aged 85 years or older.”

For perspective, he said, “Sometimes you’re seeing numbers needed to treat for vaccinations of 400 to prevent one hospitalization. They are using real-world information and they are seeing this remarkable effect. If it’s that good in the real world, it’s going to be even better in a clinical trial. That’s why I have some reservations about whether it’s really that good.”

Dr. Gurwitz said, “I’m not ready to start an 87-year-old on statin therapy who hasn’t been on it before for primary prevention, despite the results of this very well done study.” He will await the findings of PREVENTABLE, which aims to enroll 20,000 people at least 75 years old to look at statin use. But in the meantime, he will discuss the Xu et al. results and other evidence with patients if they request statins and may prescribe them as part of shared decision making.

He said the question of whether to use statins in primary prevention is similar to the question of whether to use aspirin as primary prevention for CVD in older adults.

Originally, “Most of us thought, yes, it’s probably a good thing,” he said, but now “there have been a lot of deprescribing efforts to get older people off of aspirin.

“In the United States, believe it or not, 48% of people 75 and older are on statins already,” Dr. Gurwitz said. “Maybe that’s good,” he said, but added physicians won’t know for sure until PREVENTABLE results are in.

“If I didn’t already know the PREVENTABLE trial was going on, and it was never going to happen, I would find this [Xu et al. study] very influential,” Dr. Gurwitz said. “I’m willing to wait.”

The study was funded by the Health and Medical Research Fund, Health Bureau, the Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China. Coauthors reported grants from the Kerry Group Kuok Foundation, the Malaysian College of Family Physicians, and the International Association of Chinese Nephrologists in Hong Kong. Dr. Gurwitz reported no relevant financial relationships.

Patients at least 75 years old saw a reduced risk of overall cardiovascular incidence with statin therapy without increased risk of severe adverse effects in a study published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

“Of note, the benefits and safety of statin therapy were consistently found in adults aged 85 years or older,” wrote the authors, led by Wanchun Xu, a PhD student with the Department of Family Medicine and Primary Care, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, in the Special Administrative Region, China.

Geriatrician Jerry H. Gurwitz, MD, the Dr. John Meyers Professor in Primary Care Medicine at UMass Chan Medical School in Boston, said he found the results of this trial “remarkable,” but is awaiting the results of the much-anticipated randomized, controlled PREVENTABLE trial years from now for more definitive evidence.
 

Little Consensus on Statins for This Age Group

Prescribing statins for primary prevention of CVD in the most senior patient groups has been controversial. There is little consensus as patients in this age group have been underrepresented in randomized controlled trials.

Major guidelines for use of statins in the primary prevention of CVD, including the US Preventive Services Task Force, exclude specific guidance for statin use in patients older than 75, citing insufficient evidence.

Ms. Xu and colleagues used territory-wide electronic health records in a sequential target trial emulation comparing matched cohorts that did or did not start statins. There were 42,680 matched person-trials in the group of patients aged 75-84 years and 5,390 matched person-trials in the 85 and older group. The average follow-up was 5.3 years and people with CVDs at baseline, such as coronary heart disease, were excluded. Patients who met indications for statin initiation from January 2008 to December 2015 were included.

Risk Reduction Seen in Both Senior Groups

Of the 42,680 matched person-trials in the 75-84 age group, 9676 developed cardiovascular disease; of the 5390 in the 85-plus group, 1600 developed CVD.

In the younger cohort, the 5-year reduced risk for overall CVD incidence when statin therapy was initiated was 1.20% (95% CI, 0.57%-1.82%) in the intention-to-treat (ITT) analysis; 5.00% (95% CI, 1.11%-8.89%) in the per protocol (PP) analysis.

Reduced risk for overall CVD incidence in the 85-and-older group when statins were initiated was 4.44% in the ITT analysis (95% CI, 1.40%-7.48%); and 12.50% in the PP analysis (95% CI, 4.33%-20.66%). There was no significantly increased risk for liver dysfunction or myopathies in either age group, the authors stated.

One of the biggest strengths of the study is the use of population-based data over a long period. One of the limitations was that the researchers were not able to measure lifestyle factors such as diet and physical activity in their analysis.

Dr. Gurwitz, who has done drug research in older adults for decades, said “the results are very compelling,” and in the oldest group “almost too compelling. Wow.”

Numbers Needed to Treat Are Strikingly Low

He noted that the authors thoroughly acknowledge limitations of the trial. But he also pointed to the impressive number needed to treat reported by the researchers.

The authors stated: “[O]n the basis of the estimated absolute risk reduction in the PP analysis, the number needed to treat [NNT] to prevent 1 CVD event in 5 years was 20 (95% CI, 11-90) in those aged 75-84 years and 8 (95% CI, 5-23) in those aged 85 years or older.”

For perspective, he said, “Sometimes you’re seeing numbers needed to treat for vaccinations of 400 to prevent one hospitalization. They are using real-world information and they are seeing this remarkable effect. If it’s that good in the real world, it’s going to be even better in a clinical trial. That’s why I have some reservations about whether it’s really that good.”

Dr. Gurwitz said, “I’m not ready to start an 87-year-old on statin therapy who hasn’t been on it before for primary prevention, despite the results of this very well done study.” He will await the findings of PREVENTABLE, which aims to enroll 20,000 people at least 75 years old to look at statin use. But in the meantime, he will discuss the Xu et al. results and other evidence with patients if they request statins and may prescribe them as part of shared decision making.

He said the question of whether to use statins in primary prevention is similar to the question of whether to use aspirin as primary prevention for CVD in older adults.

Originally, “Most of us thought, yes, it’s probably a good thing,” he said, but now “there have been a lot of deprescribing efforts to get older people off of aspirin.

“In the United States, believe it or not, 48% of people 75 and older are on statins already,” Dr. Gurwitz said. “Maybe that’s good,” he said, but added physicians won’t know for sure until PREVENTABLE results are in.

“If I didn’t already know the PREVENTABLE trial was going on, and it was never going to happen, I would find this [Xu et al. study] very influential,” Dr. Gurwitz said. “I’m willing to wait.”

The study was funded by the Health and Medical Research Fund, Health Bureau, the Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China. Coauthors reported grants from the Kerry Group Kuok Foundation, the Malaysian College of Family Physicians, and the International Association of Chinese Nephrologists in Hong Kong. Dr. Gurwitz reported no relevant financial relationships.

According to a US cross-sectional study, every fifth hospital patient with a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection develops an acute cardiovascular event. For patients with a preexisting cardiovascular condition, an acute cardiovascular event occurs in every third patient, as shown by data published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

RSV attacks the respiratory tract, especially the mucous membranes of the upper airways and the ciliated epithelium of the trachea and bronchi. It is not the first respiratory virus with devastating consequences for the cardiovascular system.

“In the COVID-19 pandemic, we painfully learned that patients with preexisting cardiovascular conditions have significantly higher mortality rates and that cardiovascular causes are essential in COVID-19 mortality,” said Stephan Baldus, MD, director of Clinic III for Internal Medicine at the Heart Center of the University Hospital Cologne in Cologne, Germany.

“A direct link between the virus and the development of acute coronary events has also been demonstrated for influenza. Studies have shown that in the early days of an influenza infection, the rates of heart attacks and subsequent deaths increase significantly,” Dr. Baldus added. “And now, this study shows that patients with cardiovascular diseases have a critically increased risk for an acute cardiovascular event during an RSV infection.”
 

RSV Surveillance

Rebecca C. Woodruff, PhD, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, and her colleagues analyzed data from an RSV surveillance program involving hospitals in 12 US states. The data covered hospitalized adults aged 50 years and older from five RSV seasons (from 2014/2015 to 2017/2018 and 2022/2023).

The 6248 patients were hospitalized for various reasons. They had a mean age of 73 years, and 60% of them were women. RSV infection was detected through a physician-ordered test within 14 days of admission. Slightly more than half (56.4%) of the patients had a preexisting cardiovascular condition that did not necessitate hospital treatment.

The researchers reported that more than a fifth (22.4%) of the patients with RSV had an acute cardiovascular event. Acute heart failure was most common (15.8%), but there were also acute ischemic heart disease in 7.5%, hypertensive crisis in 1.3%, ventricular tachycardia in 1.1%, and cardiogenic shock in 0.6%.
 

Acute Cardiovascular Events

Among the study population, 8.5% had no documented cardiovascular preexisting conditions. However, the risk was particularly elevated in patients with cardiovascular preexisting conditions. Overall, 33.0% of them had an acute cardiovascular event during the RSV infection.

Patients with acute cardiovascular events were almost twice as likely to have a severe course as those without acute cardiovascular events. The researchers considered treatment in the intensive care unit, the need for invasive mechanical ventilation, or the patient’s death in the hospital as severe outcomes.

Of all hospitalized patients with RSV, 18.6% required intensive care unit treatment, and 4.9% died during hospitalization. Compared with those without acute cardiovascular events, those with acute cardiovascular events had a significantly higher risk for intensive care treatment (25.8% vs 16.5%) and death in the hospital (8.1% vs 4.0%).

Although the analysis is not a prospective controlled study, according to Dr. Baldus, the results strongly suggest that RSV has cardiovascular effects. “When one in five hospitalized patients develops a cardiovascular event, that’s very suggestive,” he said.
 

More Testing Needed?

The results add to the evidence that RSV infections in older patients are associated with considerable morbidity and mortality. Unlike for COVID-19 and influenza, however, there is hardly any surveillance for RSV infections. RSV testing in hospitals is rare. Many doctors opt against testing for RSV because they are not aware of the importance of RSV as a pathogen in adults, but also because the diagnosis of RSV has no therapeutic consequences, wrote Dr. Woodruff and her colleagues.

Because there is no targeted therapy for an RSV infection, the detection of RSV can only be used as a marker for a risk for the development of an acute cardiovascular event, according to Dr. Baldus. Even considering the new study data, he emphasized, “Not every patient with a cardiovascular preexisting condition needs to be tested for RSV.”

The crucial factor is the clinical presentation. “If there is a clinical indication of pulmonary impairment (shortness of breath, tachypnea, subfebrile temperatures, or a diminished general condition) it would be desirable to perform an RSV test. This is especially true for patients requiring intensive care who need respiratory support,” said Dr. Baldus.
 

Benefits of Vaccination

The results highlight the basic epidemiology of potential cardiovascular complications of RSV infections, but before RSV vaccination became available, wrote Dr. Woodruff and her colleagues.

In 2023, the first RSV vaccine for adults aged 60 years and older was approved. “Here, a door to additional possibilities opens,” said Dr. Baldus. Although there are currently no official vaccination recommendations from Germany’s Standing Vaccination Commission, medical societies of oncologists and pulmonologists recommend vaccination against RSV. “Given the relevance of cardiovascular diseases for the prognosis of patients, but also for the occurrence of an acute cardiovascular event upon detection of RSV, the corresponding recommendation is expected to come,” said Dr. Baldus.

This story was translated from the Medscape German edition using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication. A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

According to a US cross-sectional study, every fifth hospital patient with a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection develops an acute cardiovascular event. For patients with a preexisting cardiovascular condition, an acute cardiovascular event occurs in every third patient, as shown by data published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

RSV attacks the respiratory tract, especially the mucous membranes of the upper airways and the ciliated epithelium of the trachea and bronchi. It is not the first respiratory virus with devastating consequences for the cardiovascular system.

“In the COVID-19 pandemic, we painfully learned that patients with preexisting cardiovascular conditions have significantly higher mortality rates and that cardiovascular causes are essential in COVID-19 mortality,” said Stephan Baldus, MD, director of Clinic III for Internal Medicine at the Heart Center of the University Hospital Cologne in Cologne, Germany.

“A direct link between the virus and the development of acute coronary events has also been demonstrated for influenza. Studies have shown that in the early days of an influenza infection, the rates of heart attacks and subsequent deaths increase significantly,” Dr. Baldus added. “And now, this study shows that patients with cardiovascular diseases have a critically increased risk for an acute cardiovascular event during an RSV infection.”
 

RSV Surveillance

Rebecca C. Woodruff, PhD, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, and her colleagues analyzed data from an RSV surveillance program involving hospitals in 12 US states. The data covered hospitalized adults aged 50 years and older from five RSV seasons (from 2014/2015 to 2017/2018 and 2022/2023).

The 6248 patients were hospitalized for various reasons. They had a mean age of 73 years, and 60% of them were women. RSV infection was detected through a physician-ordered test within 14 days of admission. Slightly more than half (56.4%) of the patients had a preexisting cardiovascular condition that did not necessitate hospital treatment.

The researchers reported that more than a fifth (22.4%) of the patients with RSV had an acute cardiovascular event. Acute heart failure was most common (15.8%), but there were also acute ischemic heart disease in 7.5%, hypertensive crisis in 1.3%, ventricular tachycardia in 1.1%, and cardiogenic shock in 0.6%.
 

Acute Cardiovascular Events

Among the study population, 8.5% had no documented cardiovascular preexisting conditions. However, the risk was particularly elevated in patients with cardiovascular preexisting conditions. Overall, 33.0% of them had an acute cardiovascular event during the RSV infection.

Patients with acute cardiovascular events were almost twice as likely to have a severe course as those without acute cardiovascular events. The researchers considered treatment in the intensive care unit, the need for invasive mechanical ventilation, or the patient’s death in the hospital as severe outcomes.

Of all hospitalized patients with RSV, 18.6% required intensive care unit treatment, and 4.9% died during hospitalization. Compared with those without acute cardiovascular events, those with acute cardiovascular events had a significantly higher risk for intensive care treatment (25.8% vs 16.5%) and death in the hospital (8.1% vs 4.0%).

Although the analysis is not a prospective controlled study, according to Dr. Baldus, the results strongly suggest that RSV has cardiovascular effects. “When one in five hospitalized patients develops a cardiovascular event, that’s very suggestive,” he said.
 

More Testing Needed?

The results add to the evidence that RSV infections in older patients are associated with considerable morbidity and mortality. Unlike for COVID-19 and influenza, however, there is hardly any surveillance for RSV infections. RSV testing in hospitals is rare. Many doctors opt against testing for RSV because they are not aware of the importance of RSV as a pathogen in adults, but also because the diagnosis of RSV has no therapeutic consequences, wrote Dr. Woodruff and her colleagues.

Because there is no targeted therapy for an RSV infection, the detection of RSV can only be used as a marker for a risk for the development of an acute cardiovascular event, according to Dr. Baldus. Even considering the new study data, he emphasized, “Not every patient with a cardiovascular preexisting condition needs to be tested for RSV.”

The crucial factor is the clinical presentation. “If there is a clinical indication of pulmonary impairment (shortness of breath, tachypnea, subfebrile temperatures, or a diminished general condition) it would be desirable to perform an RSV test. This is especially true for patients requiring intensive care who need respiratory support,” said Dr. Baldus.
 

Benefits of Vaccination

The results highlight the basic epidemiology of potential cardiovascular complications of RSV infections, but before RSV vaccination became available, wrote Dr. Woodruff and her colleagues.

In 2023, the first RSV vaccine for adults aged 60 years and older was approved. “Here, a door to additional possibilities opens,” said Dr. Baldus. Although there are currently no official vaccination recommendations from Germany’s Standing Vaccination Commission, medical societies of oncologists and pulmonologists recommend vaccination against RSV. “Given the relevance of cardiovascular diseases for the prognosis of patients, but also for the occurrence of an acute cardiovascular event upon detection of RSV, the corresponding recommendation is expected to come,” said Dr. Baldus.

This story was translated from the Medscape German edition using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication. A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

According to a US cross-sectional study, every fifth hospital patient with a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection develops an acute cardiovascular event. For patients with a preexisting cardiovascular condition, an acute cardiovascular event occurs in every third patient, as shown by data published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

RSV attacks the respiratory tract, especially the mucous membranes of the upper airways and the ciliated epithelium of the trachea and bronchi. It is not the first respiratory virus with devastating consequences for the cardiovascular system.

“In the COVID-19 pandemic, we painfully learned that patients with preexisting cardiovascular conditions have significantly higher mortality rates and that cardiovascular causes are essential in COVID-19 mortality,” said Stephan Baldus, MD, director of Clinic III for Internal Medicine at the Heart Center of the University Hospital Cologne in Cologne, Germany.

“A direct link between the virus and the development of acute coronary events has also been demonstrated for influenza. Studies have shown that in the early days of an influenza infection, the rates of heart attacks and subsequent deaths increase significantly,” Dr. Baldus added. “And now, this study shows that patients with cardiovascular diseases have a critically increased risk for an acute cardiovascular event during an RSV infection.”
 

RSV Surveillance

Rebecca C. Woodruff, PhD, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, and her colleagues analyzed data from an RSV surveillance program involving hospitals in 12 US states. The data covered hospitalized adults aged 50 years and older from five RSV seasons (from 2014/2015 to 2017/2018 and 2022/2023).

The 6248 patients were hospitalized for various reasons. They had a mean age of 73 years, and 60% of them were women. RSV infection was detected through a physician-ordered test within 14 days of admission. Slightly more than half (56.4%) of the patients had a preexisting cardiovascular condition that did not necessitate hospital treatment.

The researchers reported that more than a fifth (22.4%) of the patients with RSV had an acute cardiovascular event. Acute heart failure was most common (15.8%), but there were also acute ischemic heart disease in 7.5%, hypertensive crisis in 1.3%, ventricular tachycardia in 1.1%, and cardiogenic shock in 0.6%.
 

Acute Cardiovascular Events

Among the study population, 8.5% had no documented cardiovascular preexisting conditions. However, the risk was particularly elevated in patients with cardiovascular preexisting conditions. Overall, 33.0% of them had an acute cardiovascular event during the RSV infection.

Patients with acute cardiovascular events were almost twice as likely to have a severe course as those without acute cardiovascular events. The researchers considered treatment in the intensive care unit, the need for invasive mechanical ventilation, or the patient’s death in the hospital as severe outcomes.

Of all hospitalized patients with RSV, 18.6% required intensive care unit treatment, and 4.9% died during hospitalization. Compared with those without acute cardiovascular events, those with acute cardiovascular events had a significantly higher risk for intensive care treatment (25.8% vs 16.5%) and death in the hospital (8.1% vs 4.0%).

Although the analysis is not a prospective controlled study, according to Dr. Baldus, the results strongly suggest that RSV has cardiovascular effects. “When one in five hospitalized patients develops a cardiovascular event, that’s very suggestive,” he said.
 

More Testing Needed?

The results add to the evidence that RSV infections in older patients are associated with considerable morbidity and mortality. Unlike for COVID-19 and influenza, however, there is hardly any surveillance for RSV infections. RSV testing in hospitals is rare. Many doctors opt against testing for RSV because they are not aware of the importance of RSV as a pathogen in adults, but also because the diagnosis of RSV has no therapeutic consequences, wrote Dr. Woodruff and her colleagues.

Because there is no targeted therapy for an RSV infection, the detection of RSV can only be used as a marker for a risk for the development of an acute cardiovascular event, according to Dr. Baldus. Even considering the new study data, he emphasized, “Not every patient with a cardiovascular preexisting condition needs to be tested for RSV.”

The crucial factor is the clinical presentation. “If there is a clinical indication of pulmonary impairment (shortness of breath, tachypnea, subfebrile temperatures, or a diminished general condition) it would be desirable to perform an RSV test. This is especially true for patients requiring intensive care who need respiratory support,” said Dr. Baldus.
 

Benefits of Vaccination

The results highlight the basic epidemiology of potential cardiovascular complications of RSV infections, but before RSV vaccination became available, wrote Dr. Woodruff and her colleagues.

In 2023, the first RSV vaccine for adults aged 60 years and older was approved. “Here, a door to additional possibilities opens,” said Dr. Baldus. Although there are currently no official vaccination recommendations from Germany’s Standing Vaccination Commission, medical societies of oncologists and pulmonologists recommend vaccination against RSV. “Given the relevance of cardiovascular diseases for the prognosis of patients, but also for the occurrence of an acute cardiovascular event upon detection of RSV, the corresponding recommendation is expected to come,” said Dr. Baldus.

This story was translated from the Medscape German edition using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication. A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

PARIS — Intermediate valve sizes are at least as safe and effective as the standard sizes now available for transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI), according to an international randomized trial.

In a head-to-head comparison, the LANDMARK trial looked at valves from the new balloon-expandable Myval^® by Merril Life Sciences and compared them with the balloon-expandable Sapien^® from Edwards Lifesciences and the self-expanding Evolut^® valve from Medtronic.

The new Myval platform offers multiple valves sized at 1.5 mm intervals, while the other two have valves that are generally sized at intervals of 3.0 mm.

The platform with intermediate sizes provided a nonsignificant numerical advantage in both safety and efficacy over its rivals, Patrick W. Serruys, MD, PhD, from the Department of Cardiology at the University of Galway in Galway, Ireland, reported at the Congress of the European Association of Percutaneous Coronary Interventions 2024.

The LANDMARK Trial

The trial enrolled 768 patients at 31 sites in 16 countries. They were randomized in a 1:1 fashion to the new platform or to one of the standards to compare the concept of intermediate valves with contemporary standards.

Seven sizes of Myval valves were used in the study, ranging from 20 mm to 29 mm at 1.5 mm increments. Two more sizes, 30.5 mm and 32.0 mm, were not included in this analysis but are being following in a registry.

The study also used Sapien valves sized 20 mm, 23 mm, 26 mm, and 29 mm and Evolut valves sized 26 mm, 29 mm, and 34 mm. There is also a 23 mm Evolut valve available, but it was not selected by any of the participating investigators.

Of the 336 patients given Myval valves, 48% were an intermediate size not available on one of the other platforms.

For the primary composite efficacy and safety endpoint of all-cause mortality, fatal or nonfatal strokes, VARC 3 or 4 bleeding, acute kidney injury, major vascular injury, moderate or greater valve regurgitation, or conduction disturbances requiring a new permanent pacemaker, the difference in absolute risk was slightly lower in the Myval arm, at 24.7% vs 27.0%, but not statistically significant. With that numerical difference favoring the Myval platform, noninferiority was demonstrated at 30 days with a high level of statistical significance, Dr. Serruys reported.

When each endpoint, with the composite primary endpoint, was evaluated separately in a secondary analysis, all-cause mortality and stroke incidence were identical in the two arms. 

Major bleeding and acute kidney injury were nonsignificantly more common in the Myval group, while the incidence of moderate or greater valve regurgitation, placement of a new permanent pacemaker, and major vascular complications were nonsignificantly less common.

Precise Matching

The effective orifice area was consistently higher in the group receiving an intermediate valve relative to a Sapien valve. This was not significant for the 20 mm valve size, but it did reach statistical significance for the rest of the sizes. In contrast, there was no significant difference with the Evolut series.

The data suggest that intermediate sizes “enable precise and appropriate matching of devices to an individual anatomy,” at least relative to Sapien, said Dr. Serruys.

Martin Leon, MD, of Columbia University in New York, called LANDMARK an important step for considering how comparative trials should be conducted in the future.

However, he challenged the idea that this study compared devices for both safety and efficacy. Despite the evidence it provides on device and procedural safety over the short-term, he said few conclusions can be drawn about comparative efficacy after just 30 days. Rather, the true comparative value of the trial will be derived from “rigorous late follow-up,” he said.

Longer Follow-Up to Come

Dr. Serruys acknowledged that the differences seen after 30 days have uncertain relevance to longer-term outcomes. He is planning to conduct a 10-year follow-up that “will unravel whether the documented effective orifice area of the Myval platform will have a beneficial impact on long-term patient prognosis and valve durability,” he said.

Leon agreed that, so far, these data do suggest superior hemodynamic performance with the intermediate sizing relative to valves in the Sapien platform, but the same cannot be said for the Evolut platform, and he pointed out that pooling data from the two platforms for the primary endpoint “makes comparisons difficult.”

And with about half of patients still fitted with the sizes already available, he said a deeper understanding was needed of how “adjustment strategies,” such as oversizing, affect long-term outcomes relative to platforms, such as Myval, with more valve sizes.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

PARIS — Intermediate valve sizes are at least as safe and effective as the standard sizes now available for transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI), according to an international randomized trial.

In a head-to-head comparison, the LANDMARK trial looked at valves from the new balloon-expandable Myval^® by Merril Life Sciences and compared them with the balloon-expandable Sapien^® from Edwards Lifesciences and the self-expanding Evolut^® valve from Medtronic.

The new Myval platform offers multiple valves sized at 1.5 mm intervals, while the other two have valves that are generally sized at intervals of 3.0 mm.

The platform with intermediate sizes provided a nonsignificant numerical advantage in both safety and efficacy over its rivals, Patrick W. Serruys, MD, PhD, from the Department of Cardiology at the University of Galway in Galway, Ireland, reported at the Congress of the European Association of Percutaneous Coronary Interventions 2024.

The LANDMARK Trial

The trial enrolled 768 patients at 31 sites in 16 countries. They were randomized in a 1:1 fashion to the new platform or to one of the standards to compare the concept of intermediate valves with contemporary standards.

Seven sizes of Myval valves were used in the study, ranging from 20 mm to 29 mm at 1.5 mm increments. Two more sizes, 30.5 mm and 32.0 mm, were not included in this analysis but are being following in a registry.

The study also used Sapien valves sized 20 mm, 23 mm, 26 mm, and 29 mm and Evolut valves sized 26 mm, 29 mm, and 34 mm. There is also a 23 mm Evolut valve available, but it was not selected by any of the participating investigators.

Of the 336 patients given Myval valves, 48% were an intermediate size not available on one of the other platforms.

For the primary composite efficacy and safety endpoint of all-cause mortality, fatal or nonfatal strokes, VARC 3 or 4 bleeding, acute kidney injury, major vascular injury, moderate or greater valve regurgitation, or conduction disturbances requiring a new permanent pacemaker, the difference in absolute risk was slightly lower in the Myval arm, at 24.7% vs 27.0%, but not statistically significant. With that numerical difference favoring the Myval platform, noninferiority was demonstrated at 30 days with a high level of statistical significance, Dr. Serruys reported.

When each endpoint, with the composite primary endpoint, was evaluated separately in a secondary analysis, all-cause mortality and stroke incidence were identical in the two arms. 

Major bleeding and acute kidney injury were nonsignificantly more common in the Myval group, while the incidence of moderate or greater valve regurgitation, placement of a new permanent pacemaker, and major vascular complications were nonsignificantly less common.

Precise Matching

The effective orifice area was consistently higher in the group receiving an intermediate valve relative to a Sapien valve. This was not significant for the 20 mm valve size, but it did reach statistical significance for the rest of the sizes. In contrast, there was no significant difference with the Evolut series.

The data suggest that intermediate sizes “enable precise and appropriate matching of devices to an individual anatomy,” at least relative to Sapien, said Dr. Serruys.

Martin Leon, MD, of Columbia University in New York, called LANDMARK an important step for considering how comparative trials should be conducted in the future.

However, he challenged the idea that this study compared devices for both safety and efficacy. Despite the evidence it provides on device and procedural safety over the short-term, he said few conclusions can be drawn about comparative efficacy after just 30 days. Rather, the true comparative value of the trial will be derived from “rigorous late follow-up,” he said.

Longer Follow-Up to Come

Dr. Serruys acknowledged that the differences seen after 30 days have uncertain relevance to longer-term outcomes. He is planning to conduct a 10-year follow-up that “will unravel whether the documented effective orifice area of the Myval platform will have a beneficial impact on long-term patient prognosis and valve durability,” he said.

Leon agreed that, so far, these data do suggest superior hemodynamic performance with the intermediate sizing relative to valves in the Sapien platform, but the same cannot be said for the Evolut platform, and he pointed out that pooling data from the two platforms for the primary endpoint “makes comparisons difficult.”

And with about half of patients still fitted with the sizes already available, he said a deeper understanding was needed of how “adjustment strategies,” such as oversizing, affect long-term outcomes relative to platforms, such as Myval, with more valve sizes.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

PARIS — Intermediate valve sizes are at least as safe and effective as the standard sizes now available for transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI), according to an international randomized trial.

In a head-to-head comparison, the LANDMARK trial looked at valves from the new balloon-expandable Myval^® by Merril Life Sciences and compared them with the balloon-expandable Sapien^® from Edwards Lifesciences and the self-expanding Evolut^® valve from Medtronic.

The new Myval platform offers multiple valves sized at 1.5 mm intervals, while the other two have valves that are generally sized at intervals of 3.0 mm.

The platform with intermediate sizes provided a nonsignificant numerical advantage in both safety and efficacy over its rivals, Patrick W. Serruys, MD, PhD, from the Department of Cardiology at the University of Galway in Galway, Ireland, reported at the Congress of the European Association of Percutaneous Coronary Interventions 2024.

The LANDMARK Trial

The trial enrolled 768 patients at 31 sites in 16 countries. They were randomized in a 1:1 fashion to the new platform or to one of the standards to compare the concept of intermediate valves with contemporary standards.

Seven sizes of Myval valves were used in the study, ranging from 20 mm to 29 mm at 1.5 mm increments. Two more sizes, 30.5 mm and 32.0 mm, were not included in this analysis but are being following in a registry.

The study also used Sapien valves sized 20 mm, 23 mm, 26 mm, and 29 mm and Evolut valves sized 26 mm, 29 mm, and 34 mm. There is also a 23 mm Evolut valve available, but it was not selected by any of the participating investigators.

Of the 336 patients given Myval valves, 48% were an intermediate size not available on one of the other platforms.

For the primary composite efficacy and safety endpoint of all-cause mortality, fatal or nonfatal strokes, VARC 3 or 4 bleeding, acute kidney injury, major vascular injury, moderate or greater valve regurgitation, or conduction disturbances requiring a new permanent pacemaker, the difference in absolute risk was slightly lower in the Myval arm, at 24.7% vs 27.0%, but not statistically significant. With that numerical difference favoring the Myval platform, noninferiority was demonstrated at 30 days with a high level of statistical significance, Dr. Serruys reported.

When each endpoint, with the composite primary endpoint, was evaluated separately in a secondary analysis, all-cause mortality and stroke incidence were identical in the two arms. 

Major bleeding and acute kidney injury were nonsignificantly more common in the Myval group, while the incidence of moderate or greater valve regurgitation, placement of a new permanent pacemaker, and major vascular complications were nonsignificantly less common.

Precise Matching

The effective orifice area was consistently higher in the group receiving an intermediate valve relative to a Sapien valve. This was not significant for the 20 mm valve size, but it did reach statistical significance for the rest of the sizes. In contrast, there was no significant difference with the Evolut series.

The data suggest that intermediate sizes “enable precise and appropriate matching of devices to an individual anatomy,” at least relative to Sapien, said Dr. Serruys.

Martin Leon, MD, of Columbia University in New York, called LANDMARK an important step for considering how comparative trials should be conducted in the future.

However, he challenged the idea that this study compared devices for both safety and efficacy. Despite the evidence it provides on device and procedural safety over the short-term, he said few conclusions can be drawn about comparative efficacy after just 30 days. Rather, the true comparative value of the trial will be derived from “rigorous late follow-up,” he said.

Longer Follow-Up to Come

Dr. Serruys acknowledged that the differences seen after 30 days have uncertain relevance to longer-term outcomes. He is planning to conduct a 10-year follow-up that “will unravel whether the documented effective orifice area of the Myval platform will have a beneficial impact on long-term patient prognosis and valve durability,” he said.

Leon agreed that, so far, these data do suggest superior hemodynamic performance with the intermediate sizing relative to valves in the Sapien platform, but the same cannot be said for the Evolut platform, and he pointed out that pooling data from the two platforms for the primary endpoint “makes comparisons difficult.”

And with about half of patients still fitted with the sizes already available, he said a deeper understanding was needed of how “adjustment strategies,” such as oversizing, affect long-term outcomes relative to platforms, such as Myval, with more valve sizes.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

BASEL, SWITZERLAND — New findings challenge the practice of rapidly lowering blood pressure (BP) in acute ischemic stroke to allow for speedy thrombolysis.

The observational cluster study showed that patients treated in hospitals that followed the guideline-recommended practice of rapidly reducing BP did no better — and actually showed a trend toward worse outcomes — than those treated in hospitals that did not lower BP, even though this meant fewer patient received thrombolysis. 

“We found insufficient evidence to recommend active blood pressure lowering in patients with ischemic stroke who have blood pressure levels exceeding the guidelines but are otherwise eligible for thrombolytic therapy,” said senior study author Nyika D. Kruyt, MD, PhD, Leiden University Medical Center, the Netherlands. 

“Our results suggest that if the blood pressure is too high for thrombolysis, then it is best to wait and only treat with thrombolysis if the blood pressure drops spontaneously,” Dr. Kruyt said.

The findings were presented at the European Stroke Organisation Conference (ESOC) annual meeting and published online in The Lancet Neurology. 
 

Guidelines Without Evidence?

Owing to concerns about high BP increasing the risk for intracerebral hemorrhage after thrombolysis, the original trials evaluating thrombolysis in stroke set an arbitrary threshold of 185/110 mm Hg, which has been incorporated into stroke guidelines. These trials cautioned against lowering BP rapidly, which is not included in guidelines. 

Most stroke centers therefore tend to rapidly lower BP in patients who have values greater than 185/110 mm Hg and who are otherwise eligible for thrombolysis, investigators noted. Because thrombolysis is more effective the earlier it is administered, there is some urgency to reduce the BP quickly when patients first arrive at the hospital. 

“But there has never been any evidence for the lowering of blood pressure with IV [intravenous] antihypertensives before thrombolysis, and some centers have never adopted this approach because of concerns that a rapid decline in blood pressure may reduce perfusion of the brain at a time when there is already ischemia present,” Dr. Kruyt noted. 

However, if BP is lowered quickly, there is a greater chance that patients will not be able to receive thrombolysis because the 4.5-hour time limit could be exceeded.

For the prospective, observational TRUTH study, researchers compared outcomes in 853 patients treated at 27 stroke centers in the Netherlands with an active BP-lowering strategy vs 199 patients treated at 10 hospitals with no such strategy. 

Baseline characteristics of participants in the two groups were similar. 

Results showed a strong trend toward worse outcomes in participants whose BP was lowered, with an adjusted odds ratio (aOR) for a shift toward a worse 90-day functional outcome on the modified Rankin Scale of 1.27 (95% CI, 0.96-1.68). 

This was despite the fact that many more patients whose BP was reduced received thrombolysis (94% vs 52% of those with no BP lowering) and had shorter times to treatment, with average door-to-needle times of 35 minutes (vs 47 minutes among those with no BP lowering). 

Symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage occurred in 5% of the active BP-lowering group versus 3% of those who did not have their BP lowered (aOR, 1.28; 95% CI, 0.62-2.62).
 

Reconsider Guidelines?

These results are consistent with those from the INTERACT4 trial, which was also presented at the ESOC 2024 meeting. That trial showed a harmful effect of lowering BP in the ambulance in patients with acute ischemic stroke, but a beneficial effect in patients with hemorrhagic stroke.

“I think the guidelines need to be reconsidered after these studies and we should refrain from active blood pressure–lowering in patients with acute ischemic stroke,” Dr. Kruyt said. 

But he acknowledged that not rapidly lowering BP will mean fewer patients will be able to receive thrombolysis within the 4.5-hour treatment window.

Dr. Kruyt estimated that the combination of being eligible for thrombolysis, with the only exclusion criterion being BP greater than 185/110 mm Hg, applies to about 10%-15% of patients. 

“If we have a watch-and-wait policy, then about half of those patients will still get treated with thrombolysis within in the 4.5-hour limit but later than if blood pressure was reduced with IV antihypertensives,” he added. 

Dr. Kruyt noted that there has never been a randomized trial on the practice of BP lowering in order to be able to administer thrombolysis. 

“The 185/110 mm Hg blood pressure level is an arbitrary threshold that was chosen for the original thrombolysis stroke trials,” he said. “I believe we need trials to investigate whether we can give thrombolysis safely to patients with higher blood pressure levels than this, without needing to rapidly reduce the pressure.”
 

Caution Advised

Discussing the TRUTH study at the ESOC meeting, Guillaume Turc, MD, professor of neurology at Sainte-Anne Hospital, Paris, said he thought the findings were “very thought provoking.”

Simona Sacco, MD, professor of neurology at the University of L’Aquila, Italy, said the result was surprising, but she advised caution in acting on this finding. 

“I don’t think this study can change practice or guidelines as it is not a randomized trial. Yes, it can generate a hypothesis, but we need more research before changing clinical practice,” she said. 

In an accompanying editorial, Verónica Olavarría, MD, Clínica Alemana Universidad del Desarrollo, Santiago, Chile, also suggested the trial should be interpreted cautiously because there was “insufficient evidence for a definitive conclusion.”

But Dr. Kruyt noted that even though the TRUTH study was not a randomized trial, the results are in line with those of recent randomized trials such as INTERACT4.

He added that the ENCHANTED trial also showed no benefit of intensive BP management immediately after thrombolysis in mild to moderate stroke and even suggested harm in severe stroke. And other trials (OPTIMAL-BP and ENCHANTED2/MT) have shown worse outcomes with BP lowering in patients with acute ischemic stroke undergoing thrombectomy. 

“All these studies are showing similar signals throughout the whole timeline in acute ischemic stroke. The results are very much in line with each other. I think this strengthens our findings,” Dr. Kruyt said. 

“With this data, I think the guidelines should be revised, and until randomized data become available showing that reducing blood pressure in acute ischemic stroke patients in order for them to receive early thrombolysis is beneficial, then we should refrain from doing so,” he added.

INTERACT4 investigator Craig Anderson, MD, George Institute for Global Health, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, agreed. 

“The TRUTH study gives the same message as INTERACT4. They are completely in line with each other, both suggesting harm with blood pressure lowering in acute ischemic stroke. These two together are going to rattle the cage around blood pressure control in acute ischemic stroke patients,” Dr. Anderson said. 

The TRUTH study was funded by a grant from Fonds NutsOhra. Dr. Kruyt reported no relevant financial disclosures. Dr. Olavarría reported receiving a grant from Boehringer Ingelheim for the RECCA registry and honoraria from Novo Nordisk.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

BASEL, SWITZERLAND — New findings challenge the practice of rapidly lowering blood pressure (BP) in acute ischemic stroke to allow for speedy thrombolysis.

The observational cluster study showed that patients treated in hospitals that followed the guideline-recommended practice of rapidly reducing BP did no better — and actually showed a trend toward worse outcomes — than those treated in hospitals that did not lower BP, even though this meant fewer patient received thrombolysis. 

“We found insufficient evidence to recommend active blood pressure lowering in patients with ischemic stroke who have blood pressure levels exceeding the guidelines but are otherwise eligible for thrombolytic therapy,” said senior study author Nyika D. Kruyt, MD, PhD, Leiden University Medical Center, the Netherlands. 

“Our results suggest that if the blood pressure is too high for thrombolysis, then it is best to wait and only treat with thrombolysis if the blood pressure drops spontaneously,” Dr. Kruyt said.

The findings were presented at the European Stroke Organisation Conference (ESOC) annual meeting and published online in The Lancet Neurology. 
 

Guidelines Without Evidence?

Owing to concerns about high BP increasing the risk for intracerebral hemorrhage after thrombolysis, the original trials evaluating thrombolysis in stroke set an arbitrary threshold of 185/110 mm Hg, which has been incorporated into stroke guidelines. These trials cautioned against lowering BP rapidly, which is not included in guidelines. 

Most stroke centers therefore tend to rapidly lower BP in patients who have values greater than 185/110 mm Hg and who are otherwise eligible for thrombolysis, investigators noted. Because thrombolysis is more effective the earlier it is administered, there is some urgency to reduce the BP quickly when patients first arrive at the hospital. 

“But there has never been any evidence for the lowering of blood pressure with IV [intravenous] antihypertensives before thrombolysis, and some centers have never adopted this approach because of concerns that a rapid decline in blood pressure may reduce perfusion of the brain at a time when there is already ischemia present,” Dr. Kruyt noted. 

However, if BP is lowered quickly, there is a greater chance that patients will not be able to receive thrombolysis because the 4.5-hour time limit could be exceeded.

For the prospective, observational TRUTH study, researchers compared outcomes in 853 patients treated at 27 stroke centers in the Netherlands with an active BP-lowering strategy vs 199 patients treated at 10 hospitals with no such strategy. 

Baseline characteristics of participants in the two groups were similar. 

Results showed a strong trend toward worse outcomes in participants whose BP was lowered, with an adjusted odds ratio (aOR) for a shift toward a worse 90-day functional outcome on the modified Rankin Scale of 1.27 (95% CI, 0.96-1.68). 

This was despite the fact that many more patients whose BP was reduced received thrombolysis (94% vs 52% of those with no BP lowering) and had shorter times to treatment, with average door-to-needle times of 35 minutes (vs 47 minutes among those with no BP lowering). 

Symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage occurred in 5% of the active BP-lowering group versus 3% of those who did not have their BP lowered (aOR, 1.28; 95% CI, 0.62-2.62).
 

Reconsider Guidelines?

These results are consistent with those from the INTERACT4 trial, which was also presented at the ESOC 2024 meeting. That trial showed a harmful effect of lowering BP in the ambulance in patients with acute ischemic stroke, but a beneficial effect in patients with hemorrhagic stroke.

“I think the guidelines need to be reconsidered after these studies and we should refrain from active blood pressure–lowering in patients with acute ischemic stroke,” Dr. Kruyt said. 

But he acknowledged that not rapidly lowering BP will mean fewer patients will be able to receive thrombolysis within the 4.5-hour treatment window.

Dr. Kruyt estimated that the combination of being eligible for thrombolysis, with the only exclusion criterion being BP greater than 185/110 mm Hg, applies to about 10%-15% of patients. 

“If we have a watch-and-wait policy, then about half of those patients will still get treated with thrombolysis within in the 4.5-hour limit but later than if blood pressure was reduced with IV antihypertensives,” he added. 

Dr. Kruyt noted that there has never been a randomized trial on the practice of BP lowering in order to be able to administer thrombolysis. 

“The 185/110 mm Hg blood pressure level is an arbitrary threshold that was chosen for the original thrombolysis stroke trials,” he said. “I believe we need trials to investigate whether we can give thrombolysis safely to patients with higher blood pressure levels than this, without needing to rapidly reduce the pressure.”
 

Caution Advised

Discussing the TRUTH study at the ESOC meeting, Guillaume Turc, MD, professor of neurology at Sainte-Anne Hospital, Paris, said he thought the findings were “very thought provoking.”

Simona Sacco, MD, professor of neurology at the University of L’Aquila, Italy, said the result was surprising, but she advised caution in acting on this finding. 

“I don’t think this study can change practice or guidelines as it is not a randomized trial. Yes, it can generate a hypothesis, but we need more research before changing clinical practice,” she said. 

In an accompanying editorial, Verónica Olavarría, MD, Clínica Alemana Universidad del Desarrollo, Santiago, Chile, also suggested the trial should be interpreted cautiously because there was “insufficient evidence for a definitive conclusion.”

But Dr. Kruyt noted that even though the TRUTH study was not a randomized trial, the results are in line with those of recent randomized trials such as INTERACT4.

He added that the ENCHANTED trial also showed no benefit of intensive BP management immediately after thrombolysis in mild to moderate stroke and even suggested harm in severe stroke. And other trials (OPTIMAL-BP and ENCHANTED2/MT) have shown worse outcomes with BP lowering in patients with acute ischemic stroke undergoing thrombectomy. 

“All these studies are showing similar signals throughout the whole timeline in acute ischemic stroke. The results are very much in line with each other. I think this strengthens our findings,” Dr. Kruyt said. 

“With this data, I think the guidelines should be revised, and until randomized data become available showing that reducing blood pressure in acute ischemic stroke patients in order for them to receive early thrombolysis is beneficial, then we should refrain from doing so,” he added.

INTERACT4 investigator Craig Anderson, MD, George Institute for Global Health, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, agreed. 

“The TRUTH study gives the same message as INTERACT4. They are completely in line with each other, both suggesting harm with blood pressure lowering in acute ischemic stroke. These two together are going to rattle the cage around blood pressure control in acute ischemic stroke patients,” Dr. Anderson said. 

The TRUTH study was funded by a grant from Fonds NutsOhra. Dr. Kruyt reported no relevant financial disclosures. Dr. Olavarría reported receiving a grant from Boehringer Ingelheim for the RECCA registry and honoraria from Novo Nordisk.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

BASEL, SWITZERLAND — New findings challenge the practice of rapidly lowering blood pressure (BP) in acute ischemic stroke to allow for speedy thrombolysis.

The observational cluster study showed that patients treated in hospitals that followed the guideline-recommended practice of rapidly reducing BP did no better — and actually showed a trend toward worse outcomes — than those treated in hospitals that did not lower BP, even though this meant fewer patient received thrombolysis. 

“We found insufficient evidence to recommend active blood pressure lowering in patients with ischemic stroke who have blood pressure levels exceeding the guidelines but are otherwise eligible for thrombolytic therapy,” said senior study author Nyika D. Kruyt, MD, PhD, Leiden University Medical Center, the Netherlands. 

“Our results suggest that if the blood pressure is too high for thrombolysis, then it is best to wait and only treat with thrombolysis if the blood pressure drops spontaneously,” Dr. Kruyt said.

The findings were presented at the European Stroke Organisation Conference (ESOC) annual meeting and published online in The Lancet Neurology. 
 

Guidelines Without Evidence?

Owing to concerns about high BP increasing the risk for intracerebral hemorrhage after thrombolysis, the original trials evaluating thrombolysis in stroke set an arbitrary threshold of 185/110 mm Hg, which has been incorporated into stroke guidelines. These trials cautioned against lowering BP rapidly, which is not included in guidelines. 

Most stroke centers therefore tend to rapidly lower BP in patients who have values greater than 185/110 mm Hg and who are otherwise eligible for thrombolysis, investigators noted. Because thrombolysis is more effective the earlier it is administered, there is some urgency to reduce the BP quickly when patients first arrive at the hospital. 

“But there has never been any evidence for the lowering of blood pressure with IV [intravenous] antihypertensives before thrombolysis, and some centers have never adopted this approach because of concerns that a rapid decline in blood pressure may reduce perfusion of the brain at a time when there is already ischemia present,” Dr. Kruyt noted. 

However, if BP is lowered quickly, there is a greater chance that patients will not be able to receive thrombolysis because the 4.5-hour time limit could be exceeded.

For the prospective, observational TRUTH study, researchers compared outcomes in 853 patients treated at 27 stroke centers in the Netherlands with an active BP-lowering strategy vs 199 patients treated at 10 hospitals with no such strategy. 

Baseline characteristics of participants in the two groups were similar. 

Results showed a strong trend toward worse outcomes in participants whose BP was lowered, with an adjusted odds ratio (aOR) for a shift toward a worse 90-day functional outcome on the modified Rankin Scale of 1.27 (95% CI, 0.96-1.68). 

This was despite the fact that many more patients whose BP was reduced received thrombolysis (94% vs 52% of those with no BP lowering) and had shorter times to treatment, with average door-to-needle times of 35 minutes (vs 47 minutes among those with no BP lowering). 

Symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage occurred in 5% of the active BP-lowering group versus 3% of those who did not have their BP lowered (aOR, 1.28; 95% CI, 0.62-2.62).
 

Reconsider Guidelines?

These results are consistent with those from the INTERACT4 trial, which was also presented at the ESOC 2024 meeting. That trial showed a harmful effect of lowering BP in the ambulance in patients with acute ischemic stroke, but a beneficial effect in patients with hemorrhagic stroke.

“I think the guidelines need to be reconsidered after these studies and we should refrain from active blood pressure–lowering in patients with acute ischemic stroke,” Dr. Kruyt said. 

But he acknowledged that not rapidly lowering BP will mean fewer patients will be able to receive thrombolysis within the 4.5-hour treatment window.

Dr. Kruyt estimated that the combination of being eligible for thrombolysis, with the only exclusion criterion being BP greater than 185/110 mm Hg, applies to about 10%-15% of patients. 

“If we have a watch-and-wait policy, then about half of those patients will still get treated with thrombolysis within in the 4.5-hour limit but later than if blood pressure was reduced with IV antihypertensives,” he added. 

Dr. Kruyt noted that there has never been a randomized trial on the practice of BP lowering in order to be able to administer thrombolysis. 

“The 185/110 mm Hg blood pressure level is an arbitrary threshold that was chosen for the original thrombolysis stroke trials,” he said. “I believe we need trials to investigate whether we can give thrombolysis safely to patients with higher blood pressure levels than this, without needing to rapidly reduce the pressure.”
 

Caution Advised

Discussing the TRUTH study at the ESOC meeting, Guillaume Turc, MD, professor of neurology at Sainte-Anne Hospital, Paris, said he thought the findings were “very thought provoking.”

Simona Sacco, MD, professor of neurology at the University of L’Aquila, Italy, said the result was surprising, but she advised caution in acting on this finding. 

“I don’t think this study can change practice or guidelines as it is not a randomized trial. Yes, it can generate a hypothesis, but we need more research before changing clinical practice,” she said. 

In an accompanying editorial, Verónica Olavarría, MD, Clínica Alemana Universidad del Desarrollo, Santiago, Chile, also suggested the trial should be interpreted cautiously because there was “insufficient evidence for a definitive conclusion.”

But Dr. Kruyt noted that even though the TRUTH study was not a randomized trial, the results are in line with those of recent randomized trials such as INTERACT4.

He added that the ENCHANTED trial also showed no benefit of intensive BP management immediately after thrombolysis in mild to moderate stroke and even suggested harm in severe stroke. And other trials (OPTIMAL-BP and ENCHANTED2/MT) have shown worse outcomes with BP lowering in patients with acute ischemic stroke undergoing thrombectomy. 

“All these studies are showing similar signals throughout the whole timeline in acute ischemic stroke. The results are very much in line with each other. I think this strengthens our findings,” Dr. Kruyt said. 

“With this data, I think the guidelines should be revised, and until randomized data become available showing that reducing blood pressure in acute ischemic stroke patients in order for them to receive early thrombolysis is beneficial, then we should refrain from doing so,” he added.

INTERACT4 investigator Craig Anderson, MD, George Institute for Global Health, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, agreed. 

“The TRUTH study gives the same message as INTERACT4. They are completely in line with each other, both suggesting harm with blood pressure lowering in acute ischemic stroke. These two together are going to rattle the cage around blood pressure control in acute ischemic stroke patients,” Dr. Anderson said. 

The TRUTH study was funded by a grant from Fonds NutsOhra. Dr. Kruyt reported no relevant financial disclosures. Dr. Olavarría reported receiving a grant from Boehringer Ingelheim for the RECCA registry and honoraria from Novo Nordisk.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

BASEL, SWITZERLAND — Minor ischemic stroke patients with intracranial occlusion should not be treated with IV thrombolysis, a new trial has concluded.

Results from the randomized controlled trial TEMPO-2 showed no benefit from treatment with tenecteplase following ischemic stroke. In addition, investigators found a small increased risk for symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage (ICH) and more deaths in the tenecteplase group compared with the control group.

The research suggests that although it makes sense to open up vessels in patients with minor stroke, they didn’t do better with thrombolysis.

“This is not the result we were hoping for, but I think the question of whether to treat these minor stroke patients who are not disabled has now been answered,” said lead investigator Shelagh B. Coutts, MD, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

“After these results, I think we should scan these patients, admit them, give them dual antiplatelet therapy and IV fluids, and watch them like a hawk. If they deteriorate, we can intervene at that point.”

The findings were presented at the European Stroke Organization Conference (ESOC) 2024 annual meeting and published online simultaneously in The Lancet.
 

Very Little Data

Up to half of patients with ischemic stroke initially present with minimal symptoms, which are not disabling, investigators noted. Despite having low scores on the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) that typically range from 0 to 5, a third of these patients are dead or disabled at 90-day follow-up if thrombolysis is withheld.

Patients with minor deficits and evidence of an intracranial occlusion are a subpopulation at a high risk for early neurological deterioration, which most often occurs within the first 24 hours after presentation.

However, many physicians have concerns about giving thrombolysis to these patients because of the potential harm from bleeding in the absence of major deficits, and most trials of thrombolysis have excluded patients with minor stroke. That leaves very little high-quality data to guide practice for these patients.

Two previous studies have compared alteplase with antiplatelet agents in minor stroke, but no trial has specifically looked at the subset of patients with minor stroke who have intracranial occlusion. The TEMPO-2 trial was conducted to evaluate the use of tenecteplase in this patient population.

The multicenter, parallel group, open-label study was conducted at 48 hospitals in Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Finland, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

The trial included patients with minor acute ischemic stroke (NIHSS score of 0-5) and intracranial occlusion or focal perfusion abnormality who were within 12 hours from stroke onset.

Patients received IV tenecteplase (0.25 mg/kg) or non-thrombolytic standard of care (control). Most patients in the control group were treated with dual antiplatelet therapy with aspirin and clopidogrel (57%) or aspirin monotherapy (23%).

The trial was stopped early for futility after 886 patients had been enrolled. The median NIHSS score was 2.

The primary outcome — a return to baseline functioning on the modified Rankin Scale score at 90 days — occurred in 75% of the control group and in 72% of the tenecteplase group (risk ratio [RR], 0.96; P = .29).

Although there were significantly more patients with early recanalization and an NIHSS score of 0 at day 5 or discharge after tenecteplase treatment, this did not translate into improved functional outcomes at 90 days.

More patients died in the tenecteplase group compared with the control group (5% vs 1%; adjusted hazard ratio, 3.8; P = .0085).

There were eight (2%) symptomatic ICHs in the tenecteplase group versus two (< 1%) in the control group (RR, 4.2; P = .059).

The ICH rate was not different in patients treated after 4.5 hours versus before 4.5 hours. The subgroup of patients treated at 4.5-12.0 hours showed weaker evidence of better outcomes with thrombolysis than those treated before 4.5 hours, suggesting that the 12-hour window for TEMPO-2 did not explain the absence of benefit seen with tenecteplase.

Patients in the control group did better than expected, which may have been the result of chance, patient selection, or greater use of dual antiplatelet therapy, researchers noted.

Despite higher recanalization rates in the tenecteplase group (48% vs 22%), there was no change in the rate of stroke progression between groups, with an 8% rate of progression seen overall in the study.

Noting that previous studies have shown that patients with minor stroke and intracranial occlusion are at a risk for both progression and disability, the authors suggested that good supportive care may have improved outcomes in both groups.
 

More Trials Needed

Commenting on the study at the ESOC meeting, Urs Fischer, MD, Basel University Hospital, Switzerland, said “What should we do for patients with mild stroke with vessel occlusion has been a huge unanswered question. The TEMPO-2 study did not show a benefit with thrombolysis, and there was a tendency toward an increased risk of ICH. This is an important finding.”

In an accompanying editorial, Simona Sacco, MD, University of L’Aquila, Italy, and Guillaume Turc, MD, Université Paris Cité, France, noted that different minor ischemic stroke populations pose different therapeutic challenges.

Observational data suggest a benefit of endovascular treatment for minor stroke with large vessel occlusion, and dedicated randomized controlled trials in this group are ongoing, they added.

Early dual antiplatelet treatment is now the recommended treatment of minor stroke and should therefore be the active comparator for non-cardioembolic strokes in future trials.

While TEMPO-2 did not prove that tenecteplase is better than the standard of care for the acute treatment of minor stroke, Dr. Sacco and Dr. Turc said the study confirms that tenecteplase is associated with a high rate of recanalization.

“Fast recanalization with intravenous thrombolysis, endovascular treatment, proper patient selection, and combination with dual antiplatelet treatment or early initiation of anticoagulants may translate into tangible clinical benefits for patients with minor ischemic stroke, which should be tested in future studies,” they wrote.

This trial was funded by grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, and the British Heart Foundation. Boehringer Ingelheim provided tenecteplase for the study. Dr. Coutts reported no conflicts of interest. Dr. Sacco reported receiving grants for research from Novartis and Uriach; consulting fees from Novartis, Allergan-AbbVie, Teva, Lilly, Lundbeck, Pfizer, Novo Nordisk, Abbott, and AstraZeneca; payment for lectures from Novartis, Allergan-AbbVie, Teva, Lilly, Lundbeck, Pfizer, Novo Nordisk, Abbott, and AstraZeneca; and support for attending conferences from Lilly, Novartis, Teva, Lundbeck, and Pfizer. She is president elect of the European Stroke Organization and editor-in-chief of Cephalalgia. Dr. Turc reported payment for lectures from Guerbet France, is a member of the scientific advisory board of AI-Stroke, and is the Secretary General of the European Stroke Organisation.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

BASEL, SWITZERLAND — Minor ischemic stroke patients with intracranial occlusion should not be treated with IV thrombolysis, a new trial has concluded.

Results from the randomized controlled trial TEMPO-2 showed no benefit from treatment with tenecteplase following ischemic stroke. In addition, investigators found a small increased risk for symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage (ICH) and more deaths in the tenecteplase group compared with the control group.

The research suggests that although it makes sense to open up vessels in patients with minor stroke, they didn’t do better with thrombolysis.

“This is not the result we were hoping for, but I think the question of whether to treat these minor stroke patients who are not disabled has now been answered,” said lead investigator Shelagh B. Coutts, MD, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

“After these results, I think we should scan these patients, admit them, give them dual antiplatelet therapy and IV fluids, and watch them like a hawk. If they deteriorate, we can intervene at that point.”

The findings were presented at the European Stroke Organization Conference (ESOC) 2024 annual meeting and published online simultaneously in The Lancet.
 

Very Little Data

Up to half of patients with ischemic stroke initially present with minimal symptoms, which are not disabling, investigators noted. Despite having low scores on the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) that typically range from 0 to 5, a third of these patients are dead or disabled at 90-day follow-up if thrombolysis is withheld.

Patients with minor deficits and evidence of an intracranial occlusion are a subpopulation at a high risk for early neurological deterioration, which most often occurs within the first 24 hours after presentation.

However, many physicians have concerns about giving thrombolysis to these patients because of the potential harm from bleeding in the absence of major deficits, and most trials of thrombolysis have excluded patients with minor stroke. That leaves very little high-quality data to guide practice for these patients.

Two previous studies have compared alteplase with antiplatelet agents in minor stroke, but no trial has specifically looked at the subset of patients with minor stroke who have intracranial occlusion. The TEMPO-2 trial was conducted to evaluate the use of tenecteplase in this patient population.

The multicenter, parallel group, open-label study was conducted at 48 hospitals in Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Finland, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

The trial included patients with minor acute ischemic stroke (NIHSS score of 0-5) and intracranial occlusion or focal perfusion abnormality who were within 12 hours from stroke onset.

Patients received IV tenecteplase (0.25 mg/kg) or non-thrombolytic standard of care (control). Most patients in the control group were treated with dual antiplatelet therapy with aspirin and clopidogrel (57%) or aspirin monotherapy (23%).

The trial was stopped early for futility after 886 patients had been enrolled. The median NIHSS score was 2.

The primary outcome — a return to baseline functioning on the modified Rankin Scale score at 90 days — occurred in 75% of the control group and in 72% of the tenecteplase group (risk ratio [RR], 0.96; P = .29).

Although there were significantly more patients with early recanalization and an NIHSS score of 0 at day 5 or discharge after tenecteplase treatment, this did not translate into improved functional outcomes at 90 days.

More patients died in the tenecteplase group compared with the control group (5% vs 1%; adjusted hazard ratio, 3.8; P = .0085).

There were eight (2%) symptomatic ICHs in the tenecteplase group versus two (< 1%) in the control group (RR, 4.2; P = .059).

The ICH rate was not different in patients treated after 4.5 hours versus before 4.5 hours. The subgroup of patients treated at 4.5-12.0 hours showed weaker evidence of better outcomes with thrombolysis than those treated before 4.5 hours, suggesting that the 12-hour window for TEMPO-2 did not explain the absence of benefit seen with tenecteplase.

Patients in the control group did better than expected, which may have been the result of chance, patient selection, or greater use of dual antiplatelet therapy, researchers noted.

Despite higher recanalization rates in the tenecteplase group (48% vs 22%), there was no change in the rate of stroke progression between groups, with an 8% rate of progression seen overall in the study.

Noting that previous studies have shown that patients with minor stroke and intracranial occlusion are at a risk for both progression and disability, the authors suggested that good supportive care may have improved outcomes in both groups.
 

More Trials Needed

Commenting on the study at the ESOC meeting, Urs Fischer, MD, Basel University Hospital, Switzerland, said “What should we do for patients with mild stroke with vessel occlusion has been a huge unanswered question. The TEMPO-2 study did not show a benefit with thrombolysis, and there was a tendency toward an increased risk of ICH. This is an important finding.”

In an accompanying editorial, Simona Sacco, MD, University of L’Aquila, Italy, and Guillaume Turc, MD, Université Paris Cité, France, noted that different minor ischemic stroke populations pose different therapeutic challenges.

Observational data suggest a benefit of endovascular treatment for minor stroke with large vessel occlusion, and dedicated randomized controlled trials in this group are ongoing, they added.

Early dual antiplatelet treatment is now the recommended treatment of minor stroke and should therefore be the active comparator for non-cardioembolic strokes in future trials.

While TEMPO-2 did not prove that tenecteplase is better than the standard of care for the acute treatment of minor stroke, Dr. Sacco and Dr. Turc said the study confirms that tenecteplase is associated with a high rate of recanalization.

“Fast recanalization with intravenous thrombolysis, endovascular treatment, proper patient selection, and combination with dual antiplatelet treatment or early initiation of anticoagulants may translate into tangible clinical benefits for patients with minor ischemic stroke, which should be tested in future studies,” they wrote.

This trial was funded by grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, and the British Heart Foundation. Boehringer Ingelheim provided tenecteplase for the study. Dr. Coutts reported no conflicts of interest. Dr. Sacco reported receiving grants for research from Novartis and Uriach; consulting fees from Novartis, Allergan-AbbVie, Teva, Lilly, Lundbeck, Pfizer, Novo Nordisk, Abbott, and AstraZeneca; payment for lectures from Novartis, Allergan-AbbVie, Teva, Lilly, Lundbeck, Pfizer, Novo Nordisk, Abbott, and AstraZeneca; and support for attending conferences from Lilly, Novartis, Teva, Lundbeck, and Pfizer. She is president elect of the European Stroke Organization and editor-in-chief of Cephalalgia. Dr. Turc reported payment for lectures from Guerbet France, is a member of the scientific advisory board of AI-Stroke, and is the Secretary General of the European Stroke Organisation.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

BASEL, SWITZERLAND — Minor ischemic stroke patients with intracranial occlusion should not be treated with IV thrombolysis, a new trial has concluded.

Results from the randomized controlled trial TEMPO-2 showed no benefit from treatment with tenecteplase following ischemic stroke. In addition, investigators found a small increased risk for symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage (ICH) and more deaths in the tenecteplase group compared with the control group.

The research suggests that although it makes sense to open up vessels in patients with minor stroke, they didn’t do better with thrombolysis.

“This is not the result we were hoping for, but I think the question of whether to treat these minor stroke patients who are not disabled has now been answered,” said lead investigator Shelagh B. Coutts, MD, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

“After these results, I think we should scan these patients, admit them, give them dual antiplatelet therapy and IV fluids, and watch them like a hawk. If they deteriorate, we can intervene at that point.”

The findings were presented at the European Stroke Organization Conference (ESOC) 2024 annual meeting and published online simultaneously in The Lancet.
 

Very Little Data

Up to half of patients with ischemic stroke initially present with minimal symptoms, which are not disabling, investigators noted. Despite having low scores on the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) that typically range from 0 to 5, a third of these patients are dead or disabled at 90-day follow-up if thrombolysis is withheld.

Patients with minor deficits and evidence of an intracranial occlusion are a subpopulation at a high risk for early neurological deterioration, which most often occurs within the first 24 hours after presentation.

However, many physicians have concerns about giving thrombolysis to these patients because of the potential harm from bleeding in the absence of major deficits, and most trials of thrombolysis have excluded patients with minor stroke. That leaves very little high-quality data to guide practice for these patients.

Two previous studies have compared alteplase with antiplatelet agents in minor stroke, but no trial has specifically looked at the subset of patients with minor stroke who have intracranial occlusion. The TEMPO-2 trial was conducted to evaluate the use of tenecteplase in this patient population.

The multicenter, parallel group, open-label study was conducted at 48 hospitals in Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Finland, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

The trial included patients with minor acute ischemic stroke (NIHSS score of 0-5) and intracranial occlusion or focal perfusion abnormality who were within 12 hours from stroke onset.

Patients received IV tenecteplase (0.25 mg/kg) or non-thrombolytic standard of care (control). Most patients in the control group were treated with dual antiplatelet therapy with aspirin and clopidogrel (57%) or aspirin monotherapy (23%).

The trial was stopped early for futility after 886 patients had been enrolled. The median NIHSS score was 2.

The primary outcome — a return to baseline functioning on the modified Rankin Scale score at 90 days — occurred in 75% of the control group and in 72% of the tenecteplase group (risk ratio [RR], 0.96; P = .29).

Although there were significantly more patients with early recanalization and an NIHSS score of 0 at day 5 or discharge after tenecteplase treatment, this did not translate into improved functional outcomes at 90 days.

More patients died in the tenecteplase group compared with the control group (5% vs 1%; adjusted hazard ratio, 3.8; P = .0085).

There were eight (2%) symptomatic ICHs in the tenecteplase group versus two (< 1%) in the control group (RR, 4.2; P = .059).

The ICH rate was not different in patients treated after 4.5 hours versus before 4.5 hours. The subgroup of patients treated at 4.5-12.0 hours showed weaker evidence of better outcomes with thrombolysis than those treated before 4.5 hours, suggesting that the 12-hour window for TEMPO-2 did not explain the absence of benefit seen with tenecteplase.

Patients in the control group did better than expected, which may have been the result of chance, patient selection, or greater use of dual antiplatelet therapy, researchers noted.

Despite higher recanalization rates in the tenecteplase group (48% vs 22%), there was no change in the rate of stroke progression between groups, with an 8% rate of progression seen overall in the study.

Noting that previous studies have shown that patients with minor stroke and intracranial occlusion are at a risk for both progression and disability, the authors suggested that good supportive care may have improved outcomes in both groups.
 

More Trials Needed

Commenting on the study at the ESOC meeting, Urs Fischer, MD, Basel University Hospital, Switzerland, said “What should we do for patients with mild stroke with vessel occlusion has been a huge unanswered question. The TEMPO-2 study did not show a benefit with thrombolysis, and there was a tendency toward an increased risk of ICH. This is an important finding.”

In an accompanying editorial, Simona Sacco, MD, University of L’Aquila, Italy, and Guillaume Turc, MD, Université Paris Cité, France, noted that different minor ischemic stroke populations pose different therapeutic challenges.

Observational data suggest a benefit of endovascular treatment for minor stroke with large vessel occlusion, and dedicated randomized controlled trials in this group are ongoing, they added.

Early dual antiplatelet treatment is now the recommended treatment of minor stroke and should therefore be the active comparator for non-cardioembolic strokes in future trials.

While TEMPO-2 did not prove that tenecteplase is better than the standard of care for the acute treatment of minor stroke, Dr. Sacco and Dr. Turc said the study confirms that tenecteplase is associated with a high rate of recanalization.

“Fast recanalization with intravenous thrombolysis, endovascular treatment, proper patient selection, and combination with dual antiplatelet treatment or early initiation of anticoagulants may translate into tangible clinical benefits for patients with minor ischemic stroke, which should be tested in future studies,” they wrote.

This trial was funded by grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, and the British Heart Foundation. Boehringer Ingelheim provided tenecteplase for the study. Dr. Coutts reported no conflicts of interest. Dr. Sacco reported receiving grants for research from Novartis and Uriach; consulting fees from Novartis, Allergan-AbbVie, Teva, Lilly, Lundbeck, Pfizer, Novo Nordisk, Abbott, and AstraZeneca; payment for lectures from Novartis, Allergan-AbbVie, Teva, Lilly, Lundbeck, Pfizer, Novo Nordisk, Abbott, and AstraZeneca; and support for attending conferences from Lilly, Novartis, Teva, Lundbeck, and Pfizer. She is president elect of the European Stroke Organization and editor-in-chief of Cephalalgia. Dr. Turc reported payment for lectures from Guerbet France, is a member of the scientific advisory board of AI-Stroke, and is the Secretary General of the European Stroke Organisation.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

In April, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), by a vote of 3-2, opened a long-anticipated can of worms by approving its final rule that effectively bans employers’ use of all non-compete agreements (with very limited exceptions). The final rule will not go into effect until 120 days after its publication in the Federal Register, which took place on May 7, and numerous legal challenges appear to be on the horizon.

The principal components of the rule are as follows:

• After the effective date, most non-compete agreements (which prevent departing employees from signing with a new employer for a defined period within a specific geographic area) are banned nationwide.
• The rule exempts certain “senior executives,” ie individuals who earn more than $151,164 annually and serve in policy-making positions.
• There is another major exception for non-competes connected with a sale of a business.
• While not explicitly stated, the rule arguably exempts non-profits, tax-exempt hospitals, and other tax-exempt entities.
• Employers must provide verbal and written notice to employees regarding existing agreements, which would be voided under the rule.

The final rule is the latest skirmish in an ongoing, years-long debate. Twelve states have already put non-compete bans in place, according to a recent paper, and they may serve as a harbinger of things to come should the federal ban go into effect. Each state rule varies in its specifics as states respond to local market conditions. While some states ban all non-compete agreements outright, others limit them based on variables, such as income and employment circumstances. Of course, should the federal ban take effect, it will supersede whatever rules the individual states have in place.

Dr. Eastern practices dermatology and dermatologic surgery in Belleville, N.J. He is the author of numerous articles and textbook chapters, and is a longtime monthly columnist for Dermatology News. Write to him at [email protected].

In April, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), by a vote of 3-2, opened a long-anticipated can of worms by approving its final rule that effectively bans employers’ use of all non-compete agreements (with very limited exceptions). The final rule will not go into effect until 120 days after its publication in the Federal Register, which took place on May 7, and numerous legal challenges appear to be on the horizon.

The principal components of the rule are as follows:

• After the effective date, most non-compete agreements (which prevent departing employees from signing with a new employer for a defined period within a specific geographic area) are banned nationwide.
• The rule exempts certain “senior executives,” ie individuals who earn more than $151,164 annually and serve in policy-making positions.
• There is another major exception for non-competes connected with a sale of a business.
• While not explicitly stated, the rule arguably exempts non-profits, tax-exempt hospitals, and other tax-exempt entities.
• Employers must provide verbal and written notice to employees regarding existing agreements, which would be voided under the rule.

The final rule is the latest skirmish in an ongoing, years-long debate. Twelve states have already put non-compete bans in place, according to a recent paper, and they may serve as a harbinger of things to come should the federal ban go into effect. Each state rule varies in its specifics as states respond to local market conditions. While some states ban all non-compete agreements outright, others limit them based on variables, such as income and employment circumstances. Of course, should the federal ban take effect, it will supersede whatever rules the individual states have in place.

Dr. Eastern practices dermatology and dermatologic surgery in Belleville, N.J. He is the author of numerous articles and textbook chapters, and is a longtime monthly columnist for Dermatology News. Write to him at [email protected].

In April, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), by a vote of 3-2, opened a long-anticipated can of worms by approving its final rule that effectively bans employers’ use of all non-compete agreements (with very limited exceptions). The final rule will not go into effect until 120 days after its publication in the Federal Register, which took place on May 7, and numerous legal challenges appear to be on the horizon.

The principal components of the rule are as follows:

• After the effective date, most non-compete agreements (which prevent departing employees from signing with a new employer for a defined period within a specific geographic area) are banned nationwide.
• The rule exempts certain “senior executives,” ie individuals who earn more than $151,164 annually and serve in policy-making positions.
• There is another major exception for non-competes connected with a sale of a business.
• While not explicitly stated, the rule arguably exempts non-profits, tax-exempt hospitals, and other tax-exempt entities.
• Employers must provide verbal and written notice to employees regarding existing agreements, which would be voided under the rule.

The final rule is the latest skirmish in an ongoing, years-long debate. Twelve states have already put non-compete bans in place, according to a recent paper, and they may serve as a harbinger of things to come should the federal ban go into effect. Each state rule varies in its specifics as states respond to local market conditions. While some states ban all non-compete agreements outright, others limit them based on variables, such as income and employment circumstances. Of course, should the federal ban take effect, it will supersede whatever rules the individual states have in place.

Dr. Eastern practices dermatology and dermatologic surgery in Belleville, N.J. He is the author of numerous articles and textbook chapters, and is a longtime monthly columnist for Dermatology News. Write to him at [email protected].

Presentation

A 24-year-old man with no significant past medical history presents to urgent care with a 1-week history of sudden-onset dark urine, leg swelling, and unusually high blood pressure readings, with recent values around 160/100 mm Hg. Physical examination reveals pitting edema up to the mid-shins and mild periorbital edema, with an elevated blood pressure of 158/98 mm Hg. Past medical history was significant for frequent upper respiratory tract infections over the past year. Laboratory findings include hematuria, proteinuria, and a raised serum creatinine level at 1.8 mg/dL, indicating a reduced estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) of 45 mL/min/1.73 m². Other tests such as a complete blood count and comprehensive metabolic panel (except for creatinine and albumin) are within normal limits. Given these findings, the patient is referred to nephrology for further evaluation to determine the underlying cause of his renal symptoms.

Differential Diagnosis

A glomerular disease can be assumed to be present if the patient manifests glomerular hematuria, glomerular proteinuria, or both, such as in this patient.

Glomerulonephritis occurs due to inflammation in the glomeruli, which leads to blood in urine, variable degrees of protein in urine (sometimes in the nephrotic range), and white blood cells in urine without any urinary tract infection. Patients may also experience hypertension and kidney function impairment. Diagnoses to consider include:

• Postinfectious glomerulonephritis
• Crescentic glomerulonephritis
• Diffuse proliferative glomerulonephritis
• Glomerulonephritis associated with nonstreptococcal infection
• Membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis
• Membranous glomerulonephritis
• Poststreptococcal glomerulonephritis
• Rapidly Progressive glomerulonephritis

All patients presenting with proteinuria and hematuria should undergo a thorough evaluation for glomerular disease, which generally involves laboratory testing and, in most patients, a kidney biopsy to obtain a definitive diagnosis.
 

Diagnosis

This patient underwent a renal biopsy, which showed C3-dominant deposition by immunofluorescence; electron microscopy (EM) showed discontinuous, ill-defined intramembranous deposits; and mass spectrometry showed terminal complement components in C3 deposits. The patient was diagnosed with C3 glomerulonephritis (C3G).

The diagnosis of C3G is established by kidney biopsy demonstrating the characteristic findings on immunofluorescence microscopy or EM in a patient with suspected glomerulonephritis. In patients with biopsy-confirmed C3G, additional testing should be performed to help identify the underlying etiology of the glomerulopathy to help determine therapy.

For all patients diagnosed with C3G, especially those who are older than 50 years, it is important to rule out monoclonal gammopathy which can be done through various tests such as serum protein electrophoresis and immunofixation, serum free light chains, and urine protein electrophoresis and immunofixation. The presence of a paraprotein, including a monoclonal light chain, can activate the alternative complement cascade and may be responsible for the condition.

Expert opinion recommends a comprehensive complement evaluation for all C3 glomerulopathy patients, including overall complement activity assessment, serum levels measurement of complement proteins and their split products, and autoantibodies screening.

Complement evaluation may include:

• Serum C3 and C4
• Soluble C5b-9 (soluble membrane attack complex)
• Serum factor H
• Serum factor B, factor I, and membrane cofactor protein (MCP; CD46)

All patients with C3G should also undergo screening for autoantibodies:

• C3 nephritic factor (C3NeF)
• C5 nephritic factor (C5NeF)
• C4 nephritic factor (C4NeF)
• Other autoantibodies against factor H, factor B, and/or C3b

It is recommended that genetic testing be considered for patients with C3 glomerulopathy to screen for complement genes including C3, CFB, CFH, CFHR5, and CFI and copy number variations and rearrangements of the CFH-CFHR gene cluster. The value of genetic testing in the clinical setting is still being defined; however, it has been observed that patients with mutations in complement genes generally respond less favorably to mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) compared with those who are positive for nephritic factors.
 

Management

The patient was managed with an angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor to treat proteinuria and hypertension and MMF for immunosuppression. Enrollment in a clinical trial of an investigational complement inhibitor was discussed with the patient.

Currently, there are no therapeutic agents specifically designed to target the underlying complement dysregulation that occurs in individuals with C3G, and an optimal treatment for C3 glomerulopathy has not been established.

Various nonspecific therapies have been used to treat C3G, including plasmapheresis, steroids, rituximab, cyclophosphamide, and MMF and have shown positive results. For patients with C3G who have a known genetic variant (eg, CFH mutation) or who have acute kidney injury, plasmapheresis and plasma exchange may be helpful. Using these agents judiciously and in conjunction with optimal blood pressure control is important for maximum benefit in treating C3G. When someone with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) caused by C3G chooses to have a kidney transplant, it is important to know that C3G is likely to return in almost all cases and is the leading cause of transplant failure in 50%-90% of recipients.
 

Prognosis

The prognosis of C3G varies and is affected by various clinical and histological factors. While some patients may have consistently low levels of protein in their urine and maintain stable kidney function over time, others may experience severe nephrotic syndrome or rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis, which often leads to a poor prognosis.

Progression to ESRD is a major complication of C3G, with approximately 70% of affected children and 30%-50% of adults reaching this stage. In addition, disease recurrence is common after kidney transplantation, with about 50% of patients experiencing allograft loss within 10 years. Predictive factors for disease progression, although not robustly established, include initial eGFR at diagnosis, percentage of tubular atrophy, and extent of interstitial fibrosis in the cortical area as observed on kidney biopsies.
 

Clinical Takeaways

For patients exhibiting symptoms like proteinuria and hematuria indicative of glomerulonephritis, a comprehensive evaluation including laboratory tests and a kidney biopsy is essential to confirm a C3G diagnosis through characteristic findings on immunofluorescence microscopy or electron microscopy.

Additional tests to rule out associated conditions like monoclonal gammopathy and comprehensive complement evaluation are also recommended to understand the underlying etiology and guide therapy.

Though there are no treatments specifically targeting the underlying complement dysregulation unique to C3G, nonspecific therapies like ACE inhibitors, immunosuppressants (eg, MMF), and plasmapheresis are commonly used.

Some anticomplement therapies are available or under investigation, which might offer more targeted intervention options.

The prognosis for patients with C3G can vary widely and factors such as initial eGFR, the extent of tubular atrophy, and interstitial fibrosis are important predictors of disease progression.

Dr. Alper is an associate professor, Nephrology, Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, Louisiana. He has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Presentation

A 24-year-old man with no significant past medical history presents to urgent care with a 1-week history of sudden-onset dark urine, leg swelling, and unusually high blood pressure readings, with recent values around 160/100 mm Hg. Physical examination reveals pitting edema up to the mid-shins and mild periorbital edema, with an elevated blood pressure of 158/98 mm Hg. Past medical history was significant for frequent upper respiratory tract infections over the past year. Laboratory findings include hematuria, proteinuria, and a raised serum creatinine level at 1.8 mg/dL, indicating a reduced estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) of 45 mL/min/1.73 m². Other tests such as a complete blood count and comprehensive metabolic panel (except for creatinine and albumin) are within normal limits. Given these findings, the patient is referred to nephrology for further evaluation to determine the underlying cause of his renal symptoms.

Differential Diagnosis

A glomerular disease can be assumed to be present if the patient manifests glomerular hematuria, glomerular proteinuria, or both, such as in this patient.

Glomerulonephritis occurs due to inflammation in the glomeruli, which leads to blood in urine, variable degrees of protein in urine (sometimes in the nephrotic range), and white blood cells in urine without any urinary tract infection. Patients may also experience hypertension and kidney function impairment. Diagnoses to consider include:

• Postinfectious glomerulonephritis
• Crescentic glomerulonephritis
• Diffuse proliferative glomerulonephritis
• Glomerulonephritis associated with nonstreptococcal infection
• Membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis
• Membranous glomerulonephritis
• Poststreptococcal glomerulonephritis
• Rapidly Progressive glomerulonephritis

All patients presenting with proteinuria and hematuria should undergo a thorough evaluation for glomerular disease, which generally involves laboratory testing and, in most patients, a kidney biopsy to obtain a definitive diagnosis.
 

Diagnosis

This patient underwent a renal biopsy, which showed C3-dominant deposition by immunofluorescence; electron microscopy (EM) showed discontinuous, ill-defined intramembranous deposits; and mass spectrometry showed terminal complement components in C3 deposits. The patient was diagnosed with C3 glomerulonephritis (C3G).

The diagnosis of C3G is established by kidney biopsy demonstrating the characteristic findings on immunofluorescence microscopy or EM in a patient with suspected glomerulonephritis. In patients with biopsy-confirmed C3G, additional testing should be performed to help identify the underlying etiology of the glomerulopathy to help determine therapy.

For all patients diagnosed with C3G, especially those who are older than 50 years, it is important to rule out monoclonal gammopathy which can be done through various tests such as serum protein electrophoresis and immunofixation, serum free light chains, and urine protein electrophoresis and immunofixation. The presence of a paraprotein, including a monoclonal light chain, can activate the alternative complement cascade and may be responsible for the condition.

Expert opinion recommends a comprehensive complement evaluation for all C3 glomerulopathy patients, including overall complement activity assessment, serum levels measurement of complement proteins and their split products, and autoantibodies screening.

Complement evaluation may include:

• Serum C3 and C4
• Soluble C5b-9 (soluble membrane attack complex)
• Serum factor H
• Serum factor B, factor I, and membrane cofactor protein (MCP; CD46)

All patients with C3G should also undergo screening for autoantibodies:

• C3 nephritic factor (C3NeF)
• C5 nephritic factor (C5NeF)
• C4 nephritic factor (C4NeF)
• Other autoantibodies against factor H, factor B, and/or C3b

It is recommended that genetic testing be considered for patients with C3 glomerulopathy to screen for complement genes including C3, CFB, CFH, CFHR5, and CFI and copy number variations and rearrangements of the CFH-CFHR gene cluster. The value of genetic testing in the clinical setting is still being defined; however, it has been observed that patients with mutations in complement genes generally respond less favorably to mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) compared with those who are positive for nephritic factors.
 

Management

The patient was managed with an angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor to treat proteinuria and hypertension and MMF for immunosuppression. Enrollment in a clinical trial of an investigational complement inhibitor was discussed with the patient.

Currently, there are no therapeutic agents specifically designed to target the underlying complement dysregulation that occurs in individuals with C3G, and an optimal treatment for C3 glomerulopathy has not been established.

Various nonspecific therapies have been used to treat C3G, including plasmapheresis, steroids, rituximab, cyclophosphamide, and MMF and have shown positive results. For patients with C3G who have a known genetic variant (eg, CFH mutation) or who have acute kidney injury, plasmapheresis and plasma exchange may be helpful. Using these agents judiciously and in conjunction with optimal blood pressure control is important for maximum benefit in treating C3G. When someone with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) caused by C3G chooses to have a kidney transplant, it is important to know that C3G is likely to return in almost all cases and is the leading cause of transplant failure in 50%-90% of recipients.
 

Prognosis

The prognosis of C3G varies and is affected by various clinical and histological factors. While some patients may have consistently low levels of protein in their urine and maintain stable kidney function over time, others may experience severe nephrotic syndrome or rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis, which often leads to a poor prognosis.

Progression to ESRD is a major complication of C3G, with approximately 70% of affected children and 30%-50% of adults reaching this stage. In addition, disease recurrence is common after kidney transplantation, with about 50% of patients experiencing allograft loss within 10 years. Predictive factors for disease progression, although not robustly established, include initial eGFR at diagnosis, percentage of tubular atrophy, and extent of interstitial fibrosis in the cortical area as observed on kidney biopsies.
 

Clinical Takeaways

For patients exhibiting symptoms like proteinuria and hematuria indicative of glomerulonephritis, a comprehensive evaluation including laboratory tests and a kidney biopsy is essential to confirm a C3G diagnosis through characteristic findings on immunofluorescence microscopy or electron microscopy.

Additional tests to rule out associated conditions like monoclonal gammopathy and comprehensive complement evaluation are also recommended to understand the underlying etiology and guide therapy.

Though there are no treatments specifically targeting the underlying complement dysregulation unique to C3G, nonspecific therapies like ACE inhibitors, immunosuppressants (eg, MMF), and plasmapheresis are commonly used.

Some anticomplement therapies are available or under investigation, which might offer more targeted intervention options.

The prognosis for patients with C3G can vary widely and factors such as initial eGFR, the extent of tubular atrophy, and interstitial fibrosis are important predictors of disease progression.

Dr. Alper is an associate professor, Nephrology, Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, Louisiana. He has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Presentation

A 24-year-old man with no significant past medical history presents to urgent care with a 1-week history of sudden-onset dark urine, leg swelling, and unusually high blood pressure readings, with recent values around 160/100 mm Hg. Physical examination reveals pitting edema up to the mid-shins and mild periorbital edema, with an elevated blood pressure of 158/98 mm Hg. Past medical history was significant for frequent upper respiratory tract infections over the past year. Laboratory findings include hematuria, proteinuria, and a raised serum creatinine level at 1.8 mg/dL, indicating a reduced estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) of 45 mL/min/1.73 m². Other tests such as a complete blood count and comprehensive metabolic panel (except for creatinine and albumin) are within normal limits. Given these findings, the patient is referred to nephrology for further evaluation to determine the underlying cause of his renal symptoms.

Differential Diagnosis

A glomerular disease can be assumed to be present if the patient manifests glomerular hematuria, glomerular proteinuria, or both, such as in this patient.

Glomerulonephritis occurs due to inflammation in the glomeruli, which leads to blood in urine, variable degrees of protein in urine (sometimes in the nephrotic range), and white blood cells in urine without any urinary tract infection. Patients may also experience hypertension and kidney function impairment. Diagnoses to consider include:

• Postinfectious glomerulonephritis
• Crescentic glomerulonephritis
• Diffuse proliferative glomerulonephritis
• Glomerulonephritis associated with nonstreptococcal infection
• Membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis
• Membranous glomerulonephritis
• Poststreptococcal glomerulonephritis
• Rapidly Progressive glomerulonephritis

All patients presenting with proteinuria and hematuria should undergo a thorough evaluation for glomerular disease, which generally involves laboratory testing and, in most patients, a kidney biopsy to obtain a definitive diagnosis.
 

Diagnosis

This patient underwent a renal biopsy, which showed C3-dominant deposition by immunofluorescence; electron microscopy (EM) showed discontinuous, ill-defined intramembranous deposits; and mass spectrometry showed terminal complement components in C3 deposits. The patient was diagnosed with C3 glomerulonephritis (C3G).

The diagnosis of C3G is established by kidney biopsy demonstrating the characteristic findings on immunofluorescence microscopy or EM in a patient with suspected glomerulonephritis. In patients with biopsy-confirmed C3G, additional testing should be performed to help identify the underlying etiology of the glomerulopathy to help determine therapy.

For all patients diagnosed with C3G, especially those who are older than 50 years, it is important to rule out monoclonal gammopathy which can be done through various tests such as serum protein electrophoresis and immunofixation, serum free light chains, and urine protein electrophoresis and immunofixation. The presence of a paraprotein, including a monoclonal light chain, can activate the alternative complement cascade and may be responsible for the condition.

Expert opinion recommends a comprehensive complement evaluation for all C3 glomerulopathy patients, including overall complement activity assessment, serum levels measurement of complement proteins and their split products, and autoantibodies screening.

Complement evaluation may include:

• Serum C3 and C4
• Soluble C5b-9 (soluble membrane attack complex)
• Serum factor H
• Serum factor B, factor I, and membrane cofactor protein (MCP; CD46)

All patients with C3G should also undergo screening for autoantibodies:

• C3 nephritic factor (C3NeF)
• C5 nephritic factor (C5NeF)
• C4 nephritic factor (C4NeF)
• Other autoantibodies against factor H, factor B, and/or C3b

It is recommended that genetic testing be considered for patients with C3 glomerulopathy to screen for complement genes including C3, CFB, CFH, CFHR5, and CFI and copy number variations and rearrangements of the CFH-CFHR gene cluster. The value of genetic testing in the clinical setting is still being defined; however, it has been observed that patients with mutations in complement genes generally respond less favorably to mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) compared with those who are positive for nephritic factors.
 

Management

The patient was managed with an angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor to treat proteinuria and hypertension and MMF for immunosuppression. Enrollment in a clinical trial of an investigational complement inhibitor was discussed with the patient.

Currently, there are no therapeutic agents specifically designed to target the underlying complement dysregulation that occurs in individuals with C3G, and an optimal treatment for C3 glomerulopathy has not been established.

Various nonspecific therapies have been used to treat C3G, including plasmapheresis, steroids, rituximab, cyclophosphamide, and MMF and have shown positive results. For patients with C3G who have a known genetic variant (eg, CFH mutation) or who have acute kidney injury, plasmapheresis and plasma exchange may be helpful. Using these agents judiciously and in conjunction with optimal blood pressure control is important for maximum benefit in treating C3G. When someone with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) caused by C3G chooses to have a kidney transplant, it is important to know that C3G is likely to return in almost all cases and is the leading cause of transplant failure in 50%-90% of recipients.
 

Prognosis

The prognosis of C3G varies and is affected by various clinical and histological factors. While some patients may have consistently low levels of protein in their urine and maintain stable kidney function over time, others may experience severe nephrotic syndrome or rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis, which often leads to a poor prognosis.

Progression to ESRD is a major complication of C3G, with approximately 70% of affected children and 30%-50% of adults reaching this stage. In addition, disease recurrence is common after kidney transplantation, with about 50% of patients experiencing allograft loss within 10 years. Predictive factors for disease progression, although not robustly established, include initial eGFR at diagnosis, percentage of tubular atrophy, and extent of interstitial fibrosis in the cortical area as observed on kidney biopsies.
 

Clinical Takeaways

For patients exhibiting symptoms like proteinuria and hematuria indicative of glomerulonephritis, a comprehensive evaluation including laboratory tests and a kidney biopsy is essential to confirm a C3G diagnosis through characteristic findings on immunofluorescence microscopy or electron microscopy.

Additional tests to rule out associated conditions like monoclonal gammopathy and comprehensive complement evaluation are also recommended to understand the underlying etiology and guide therapy.

Though there are no treatments specifically targeting the underlying complement dysregulation unique to C3G, nonspecific therapies like ACE inhibitors, immunosuppressants (eg, MMF), and plasmapheresis are commonly used.

Some anticomplement therapies are available or under investigation, which might offer more targeted intervention options.

The prognosis for patients with C3G can vary widely and factors such as initial eGFR, the extent of tubular atrophy, and interstitial fibrosis are important predictors of disease progression.

Dr. Alper is an associate professor, Nephrology, Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, Louisiana. He has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.