Evidence-Based Cardiology

Keeping pace with the volume of information from clinical trials in cardiology can be challenging. With this pocket-sized handbook you'll discover quick and easy access to up-to-date, diagnostic tests and treatments based on clinical trial data. Thoroughly updated throughout, the book lets you review the most current clinical trials and the latest American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association guidelines at a glance.Six areas of evidence-based cardiac medicine are addressed in this book: risk factors for coronary artery disease; coronary invasive studies; unstable angina/non-Q wave myocardial infarction; acute myocardial infarction; congestive heart failure; and ventricular arrhythmias. The purpose is to summarize current data from many clinical trials in the six major areas of cardiovascular medicine in an easy to access fashion. These are worthy objectives since the data are accumulating at such a rapid rate -- frequent reviews and updates are mandatory. The text is directed toward general cardiologists but internal medicine physicians, and residents, fellows, and students would find it worthwhile. This is simply because it would allow them to focus on more pertinent reference materials. Each of the six areas of cardiovascular medicine are introduced with an excellent overview of the area. This is followed by a list of general review articles with short summaries of the contents. This is followed by a list of current references catalogued under different subheadings. Each article is followed by a pertinent summary. There are many tables -- lipid trials showing mortality, hypertension treatment guidelines utilizing JNC VI. The references are very current and pertinent to cardiac practice. They are broken down into reviews, meta analyses, and then actual clinical trials. I think this is a worthwhile addition to the cardiac literature. The shortcoming of these texts is that they quickly become outdated because of the large number of clinical trials both ongoing and completed on a yearly basis. A comparable text published in 1999 was Kloner's Cardiovascular Trials Review, 4th Edition (LeJacqCommunications, 1999). Kloner's text represents nine years of trials comparing management and disease categories. The large text in this area is by Yusuf, Evidence Based Cardiology (BMJ Publishing Group, 1998). Yusuf's text is a large book in which individual expertise is mixed with the best research evidence available. This pocket size text has an appeal to it. - John F. Moran