A special theme issue of JAMA released this week during the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2014 takes a close look at cardiovascular health, with studies related to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease.
The latest data show that nearly one in three American adults—approximately 70 million—have high blood pressure, and more than one-half of these adults don't have it under control. At the same time, one in three heart disease deaths are preventable.
JAMA studies look at such timely topics as:
- Prevalence and risk of death based on type of coronary artery disease in heart attack patients. This study found that the presence of non-infarct-related artery (IRA) disease was significantly associated with increased 30-day mortality compared to patients without non-IRA disease.
- The decline of overall death rate from heart disease. While this study demonstrated a continued decrease in overall heart disease mortality, it also found an increase in the risk of death from the subtypes of hypertensive heart disease and arrhythmia.
- Association between use of beta-blockers by patients with certain type of heart failure and improved rate of survival. Using data from the Swedish Heart Failure Registry, this study found that among patients with heart failure and preserved ejection fraction, use of beta-blockers was associated with lower all-cause mortality. It was not associated with lower combined all-cause mortality or heart failure hospitalization.
New JAMA Viewpoints and editorials in this issue examine such topics as population and personalized medicine in the modern era, patients with undiagnosed hypertension and administrative databases’ ability to provide complete information about potentially important confounders.
The AMA is aiming to make a profound impact on cardiovascular disease in the United States through its Improving Health Outcomes initiative, which focuses on hypertension and type 2 diabetes.
As part of the initiative, physicians and care teams in Maryland and Illinois are developing and testing evidence-based recommendations to improve high blood pressure, working with the AMA and researchers at the Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality and the Johns Hopkins Center to Eliminate Cardiovascular Health Disparities.
The pilot practices are making clinical changes, using checklists and other tools to help them measure blood pressure accurately and act rapidly when elevated blood pressure is discovered. They’re also exploring clinical-community linkages, in which physicians refer patients to community resources that can help them improve their blood pressure.
