Pharmacogenetics in the Development of Lipid Lowering Medications: Lomitapide & Mipomersen in Clinical Practice.

Introduction: The familial hypercholesterolemias (FH) are a group of undertreated genetically inherited disorders of lipid metabolism that lead to severely elevated cholesterol levels and early onset cardiovascular disease. Aggressive lifestyle modifications and lipid-lowering medications such as statins and bile acid sequestrants are the backbone of current treatment. Despite these interventions, homozygous FH (HoFH) patients are unable to reach LDL-C targets and remain at significantly increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

Left Internal Mammary Artery Dissection: Use of Dual Balloon Angioplasty in Treatment of Ostial Dissection Involving Subclavian Artery.

The left internal mammary artery (LIMA) is the preferred arterial graft to be used for the left anterior descending (LAD) artery for coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) due to high graft patency rate. LIMA dissection is a rare, but dreadful complication of graft angiography and may lead to serious complications including death, myocardial infarction (MI), and re-do CABG. Transcatheter management of LIMA dissection involves multiple stenting.

Global health delivery 2.0: using open-access technologies for transparency and operations research.

Duncan Maru and colleagues at Nyaya Health describe several simple Web 2.0 strategies they have implemented during the course of delivering medical and public health services in rural Nepal.