• Government
• Profession
• Business
• Opinion
• Health

• Health reform
• H1N1
• P4P
• EMRs
• Medicare
• Liability
• AMA House
• » More

• Book Excerpt
• Business Pitch
• Meetings
• » More

• Contract Language
• Ethics Forum
• In the Courts
• Practice Management
• Technically Speaking
• » More

• Issue dates
• Regions
• Health plans
• Sections
• News briefs
• Columns
• Editorials
• Letters
• Writers
• Other years

• Search tips
• E-mail alert
• Radio
• RSS
• Mobile
• Subscribe
• Institutions
• Staff directory
• Advertising
• Permissions
• Reprints
• News media
• Site guide
• Useful links
• About
• Premium
• Contact

New role for antibiotics in cardiac care?

Although the nature of the relationship is unclear, some evidence indicates the drugs could be useful in preventing heart attacks.

By Victoria Stagg Elliott, amednews staff. April 1, 2002.

• PRINT|
• E-MAIL|
• RESPOND|
• REPRINTS|
• SHARE

Treating people who already have heart trouble with antibiotics may improve cardiac function and reduce the rate of future heart attacks, according to two studies published in the February and March issues of Circulation, the Journal of the American Heart Assn.

The first, published in February by British researchers, found that in angina patients who tested positive for Chlamydia pneumoniae, vascular function improved after five weeks of azithromycin treatment.

The second study, conducted in Finland and released in March, found that treating people already hospitalized for heart trouble with a three-month regimen of clarithromycin reduced the risk for future heart attacks.

Like an increasing number of medical conditions, heart disease has long been believed to have an infectious component. These two studies are the latest to point in that direction.

"This is an idea whose time has come," said Anderson Morris, MD, medical director of the HealthSouth Heart College and a cardiologist with Cardiovascular Associates in Birmingham, Ala. "Cholesterol is not the total answer, and now we're finding that there are other things going on in the arteries that can cause heart attacks."

Few believe, however, that bacteria or viruses are directly at fault. Currently, the most popular theory is that infection causes inflammation which destabilizes arterial plaques causing cardiac events. But this notion is still unproven. In addition, it's not entirely clear what the role of Chlamydia is, although it is the most common infectious agent found in heart patients' cardiac plaques. [...]