News

• The Value of the Networked Patient: Improving Patient Survival
  The use of remote monitoring for patients with implantable devices has many benefits. The use of home monitoring directly involves the patient in their own care and greatly improves the speed of detection of possibly dangerous changes in their cardiac rhythm or other parameters. By timely detection and treatment of these changes, patient outcomes are improved. More...
  
  
• Recent Publications
  
  
• New Tools for Helping Heart Patients
  In the old days, Mrs.Elzo, 73, who lives outside Tulsa, Okla., could have gone for months before the problem was discovered at a routine office visit. But she has a new defibrillator that communicates directly with her doctor, sending signals about its functions and setting off alarms if things go wrong. On the horizon is an even smarter heart device, one that detects deterioration in various heart functions and tells the patient how to adjust medications. More...
  
  
• Combination implant appears to help more heart-failure patients
  The CRT-D, part automated defibrillator, part cardiac resynchronization device, reduced hospitalizations in milder cases. But issues including cost have some questioning how widely it should be used. An implantable device that shocks an erratically beating heart and works to keep both ventricles beating synchronously reduced hospitalizations for heart failure by 41%, according to results reported Tuesday at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Barcelona, Spain. More...
  
  
• A Chip That's Good for Your Body
  New technology and increased funding is allowing doctors to monitor their patients' health virtually through computer chips. But as technology revolutionizes the health care field, there are some kinks to be worked out. Caitlan Carroll reports. More...
  
  
• Survival after Tachyarrhythmic Arrest What Are We Waiting For?
  Leslie A. Saxon, M.D.
  The New England Journal of Medicine, January 3, 2008
  Approximately 225,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occur annually in the United States. It is a little-known fact that at least double that number of cardiac arrests occur in hospitalized patients. Survival after cardiac arrest due to ventricular tachycardia or ventricular fibrillation requires prompt defibrillation, regardless of the setting in which it occurs. Therefore, it is clear that timely defibrillation in the hospital is an important determinant of the quality of cardiovascular care. More...
  
  
• Hospital Cardiac Arrest Response Often Too Slow
  New York Times, May 17, 2009
  When patients in the hospital suddenly go into cardiac arrest, the staff often takes too long to respond, increasing the risk of brain damage and death, a new study finds. More...
  
  
• European Society of Cardiology Honors Career of USC Distinguished Professor
  HSC Weekly, February 27,2009
  The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) will award its highest honor, the Gold Medal, to Shahbudin H. Rahimtoola, USC Distinguished Professor and George C. Griffith Professor of Cardiology, for his outstanding contribution to the development of cardiology. More...
  
  
• U.S. Officials, Industry See Border Delays In Impending China Import Reg
  From the November 5, 2007, issue of "The Gray Sheet"
  U.S. officials with the World Trade Organization and the U.S. device industry are challenging China's government on pending regulations they say will create unnecessary delays in getting devices into China and onto its market. More...
  
  
• Researchers Seek Way to Stem Atherosclerosis
  Several USC research teams have combined their diverse areas of expertise - including engineering, pharmaceutical sciences and cardiology - to study a novel strategy for preventing atherosclerosis. The researchers, led by primary investigator Tzung Hsiai, holder of the Robert G. and Mary G. Lane Early Career Chair at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, include Enrique Cadenas, the Charles Krown/Alumni Professor in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the USC School of Pharmacy, and Howard Hodis, the Harry J. Bauer and Dorothy Bauer Rawlins Professor of Cardiology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. More...
  
  
• Estrogen therapy may slow advance of atherosclerosis
  Keck School of Medicine researchers believe that giving women estrogen after menopause may help delay heart disease, and they have begun a landmark study funded by the National Institute on Aging, one of the National Institutes of Health, to put their beliefs to the test. Howard N. Hodis, the Harry J. Bauer and Dorothy Bauer Rawlins Professor of Cardiology, leads the five-year, $9.8 million Early versus Late Intervention Trial with Estradiol, or ELITE. More...
  
  
• Study shows diuretics more effective than newer drugs in stemming heart problems
  The latest results from the Anti-hypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment to Prevent Heart Attack Trial, or ALLHAT-which compared therapies for the prevention of heart disease-were published in the April 6 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). L. Julian Haywood , professor of medicine in the division of cardiovascular medicine at the Keck School, was one of the paper's co-authors and has served on ALLHAT's steering committee. More...