Utility of serial measurement of biomarkers of cardiovascular stress and inflammation in systolic dysfunction.

Aims: Evidence links markers of systemic inflammation and heart failure (HF) with ventricular arrhythmias (VA) and/or death. Biomarker levels, and the risk they indicate, may vary over time. We evaluated the utility of serial laboratory measurements of inflammatory biomarkers and HF, using time-dependent analysis.

Cost-Saving Opportunities with Appropriate Utilization of Cardiac Telemetry.

A third of healthcare spending in the United States is considered waste, and costs are growing at an unsustainable rate. Reducing unnecessary cardiac telemetry, a costly intervention with a high potential for overuse, may be an opportunity to reduce waste. We performed a review of 250 consecutive patients admitted to telemetry capable beds on the general medical-surgical, noncritical care units.

Metastatic Cardiac Angiosarcoma in a 26-Year-Old Male.

Background: Cardiac angiosarcomas are an extremely rare tumor with an incidence of only 0.056%. Diagnosing this rare tumor becomes even more difficult as the presentation of cardiac angiosarcomas varies based on anatomic location.

Collateral benefits of improving glycemic control on lipids in a diabetic population.

Background: Diabetes is an illness with multiple quality indicators. This retrospective cohort study sought to determine if interventions directed at physicians to target improvements in hemoglobin A1c (HgA1c) quality indicators had collateral benefits on similarly measured low-density lipoprotein (LDL) indicators.

Methods: We initially analyzed the primary care diabetic patient electronic databases from 2008 (N  =  16,503) and 2010 (N  =  23,040).