The cholesterol hypothesis is alive again!

From a recent paper in JAMA:

Key Points

Question Is consuming dietary cholesterol or eggs associated with incident cardiovascular disease (CVD) and all-cause mortality?

Findings Among 29 615 adults pooled from 6 prospective cohort studies in the United States with a median follow-up of 17.5 years, each additional 300 mg of dietary cholesterol consumed per day was significantly associated with higher risk of incident CVD (adjusted hazard ratio [HR], 1.17; adjusted absolute risk difference [ARD], 3.24%) and all-cause mortality (adjusted HR, 1.18; adjusted ARD, 4.43%), and each additional half an egg consumed per day was significantly associated with higher risk of incident CVD (adjusted HR, 1.06; adjusted ARD, 1.11%) and all-cause mortality (adjusted HR, 1.08; adjusted ARD, 1.93%).

Meaning Among US adults, higher consumption of dietary cholesterol or eggs was significantly associated with higher risk of incident CVD and all-cause mortality in a dose-response manner.

This paper has been wildly overhyped. It’s new data but concludes nothing we didn’t already know: cholesterol matters. The real problem is, so do a lot of other things. Those who would hype this finding lack an appreciation of the concept of population attributable risk.

Check point inhibitor induced colitis

An emerging entity.

Which patients post cardiac arrest need to go straight to the cath lab?

From a recent AHA scientific statement:

CAD is a common substrate, and its severity is a potential trigger for OHCA, especially in the case of shockable rhythms. Patients with VF/pVT OHCA should be considered at the highest severity of a continuum of acute coronary syndromes. Patients with VF/pVT have a significant burden of CAD: acute, chronic, or acute on chronic (Figure 8)…

Current guidelines recommend early CAG and reperfusion for postarrest patients manifesting ST-segment elevation after ROSC is achieved. However, because of a lack of conclusive randomized data and ongoing perceived clinical equipoise, there is no consensus guideline on the use of CAG and coronary revascularization in patients without ST-segment elevation on ECG. Multiple randomized trials addressing this question are underway. Until their completion, there is a significant body of observational studies that address the role of the CCL in this population.

The current evidence suggests that early access to the CCL in patients resuscitated from VF/pVT cardiac arrest is associated with 2- to 3-fold higher functionally favorable survival rates than more conservative approaches of late or no access to the CCL. This body of evidence, with potential for unmeasured selection bias, suggests that patients resuscitated from OHCA, especially those with presenting shockable rhythms, should be considered for early CAG, identification of reversible causes, and revascularization when indicated.

This is in line with the current ACLS guidelines, which say that if there’s ST elevation post ROSC an immediate trip to the cath lab carries a class I recommendation. For patients without STE, the guidelines give a IIa recommendation to go straight to the cath lab if the arrest is of suspected cardiac origin on clinical grounds.

Cardiorenal syndrome

The AHA scientific statement is available as free full text here.

Rates of cardiac testing prior to hip fracture surgery

From a recent report:

Hip fracture is a common reason for urgent inpatient surgery. In the past few years, several professional societies have identified preoperative echocardiography and stress testing for noncardiac surgeries as low-value diagnostics. We utilized data on hospitalizations with a primary diagnosis of hip fracture surgery between 2011 and 2015 from the State Inpatient Databases (SID) of Maryland, New Jersey, and Washington, combined with data on hospital characteristics from the American Hospital Association (AHA). We found that the rate of preoperative ischemic testing is surprisingly but encouragingly low (stress tests 1.1% and cardiac catheterizations 0.5%), which is consistent with studies evaluating the outpatient utilization of these tests for low- and intermediate-risk surgeries. The rate of echocardiograms was 12.6%, which was higher than other published reports. Our findings emphasize the importance of ensuring that quality improvement efforts are directed toward areas where quality improvement is, in fact, needed.