March 23, 2010 – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently added a boxed warning to the anti-blood clotting drug Plavix (clopidogrel), alerting patients and healthcare professionals that the drug can be less effective in people who cannot metabolize the drug to convert it to its active form.

March 22, 2010 – The FDA’s Circulatory System Devices Panel last week unanimously recommended expanding the indication for cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillators (CRT-Ds) to slow the progression of heart failure in patients with asymptomatic or mild heart failure (HF).

March 22, 2010 – An FDA committee voted unanimously in favor of approval with conditions of a new pacemaker that is safe for use in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) systems. MRI procedures are not recommended in the United States for patients who currently have implanted pacemakers.

March 19, 2010 – An experimental factor Xa inhibitor given to patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation (AF) or atrial flutter and at least one risk factor for stroke, reduced the incidence of major and clinically relevant non-major (CRNM) bleeds compared to dose-adjusted warfarin.

March 18, 2010 — New data from two subanalyses of the Treating to New Targets (TNT) trial showed an increased dose of atorvastatin calcium (Lipitor), lowered cardiovascular events among high-risk patients with both coronary heart disease (CHD) and chronic kidney disease (CKD) who were obese or had metabolic syndrome.