1,720,996 research outputs found
Atorvastatin efficacy in the primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular events.
No full textAtorvastatin has been extensively studied in the primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular events, and may have some clinical advantages over various other statins in these respects. The principal primary prevention study of atorvastatin, ASCOT-LLA (Anglo-Scandinavian Cardiac Outcomes Trial-Lipid Lowering Arm), revealed that atorvastatin reduced the relative risk of primary coronary heart disease (CHD) events by 36% (p = 0.0005) compared with placebo in patients with hypertension. Much published data confirm the secondary preventive benefits of atorvastatin in various clinical settings. The IDEAL (Incremental Decrease in End Points Through Aggressive Lipid Lowering) and TNT (Treating to New Targets) trials demonstrate the preventive efficacy of atorvastatin in patients with stable CHD. Relative to simvastatin (in the IDEAL trial) and low-dosage atorvastatin (in the TNT trial), intensive atorvastatin therapy (80 mg/day) reduced the risk of nonfatal myocardial infarction (MI) by 17-22% (p < or = 0.02). Furthermore, the ALLIANCE (Aggressive Lipid-Lowering Initiation Abates New Cardiac Events) and GREACE (GREek Atorvastatin and Coronary-heart-disease Evaluation) trials highlight the benefits of atorvastatin in the 'real world' setting in patients with stable CHD. Compared with 'usual' care, atorvastatin reduced the risk of nonfatal MI by 47-59% (p < or = 0.0002).Moreover, the MIRACL (Myocardial Ischemia Reduction with Aggressive Cholesterol Lowering), PROVE-IT (PRavastatin Or atorVastatin Evaluation and Infection Therapy) and IDEAL-ACS (Acute Coronary Syndromes) studies outline the benefits of high-dosage atorvastatin therapy started within 24-96 hours, 10 days or 2 months, respectively, of an acute coronary syndrome. Relative to placebo, pravastatin and simvastatin, atorvastatin reduced the risk of death or major cardiovascular events by 16-18% (p < or = 0.048). In patients undergoing revascularisation procedures, the AVERT (Atorvastatin VErsus Revascularisation Treatment) study revealed that 18 months' administration of atorvastatin 80 mg/day was at least as effective as angioplasty plus usual care in reducing the risk of ischaemic events in low-risk patients with stable coronary artery disease. Furthermore, the ARMYDA (Atorvastatin for Reduction in MYocardial DAmage during angioplasty) and ARMYDA-3 trials showed that 7 days' administration of atorvastatin 40 mg/day before coronary intervention significantly reduced the risks of periprocedural myocardial damage (ARMYDA), postprocedural MI (p = 0.025; ARMYDA) and atrial fibrillation (p = 0.003; ARMYDA-3) versus placebo. In addition, it has been reported that C-reactive protein levels and the combined incidence of cardiovascular events (death, MI and target segment revascularisation during the 6-month follow-up) were significantly higher in coronaropathic patients undergoing non-surgical revascularisation procedures (stent implantation) not receiving statin therapy compared with those treated with atorvastatin (80mg). Overall, therefore, the marked efficacy of atorvastatin in the primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular events underscores the pivotal place that this statin has in general cardiovascular disease management, and suggests even greater potential clinical utility for the drug in some clinical settings
Atorvastatin: its clinical role in cerebrovascular prevention.
No full textAn association between hypercholesterolaemia and ischaemic stroke has not yet been clearly defined by observational studies. In clinical trials, however, cholesterol-lowering treatments appear to consistently reduce stroke risk. Data are now available from various primary prevention studies - ALLHAT-LLT (Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering treatment to prevent Heart Attack, Lipid-Lowering Therapy), ASCOT-LLA (Anglo-Scandinavian Cardiac Outcomes Trial, Lipid-Lowering Arm), CARDS (Collaborative Atorvastatin Diabetes Study, WOSCOPS (West of Scotland COronary Prevention Study) - and secondary prevention studies - 4S (Scandinavian Simvastatin Survival Study), CARE (Cholesterol and Recurrent Events), GREACE (GREek Atorvastatin and Coronary-heart-disease Evaluation), HPS (Heart Protection Study), LIPID (Long-term Intervention with Pravastatin in Ischaemic Disease), MIRACL (Myocardial Ischemia Reduction with Aggressive Cholesterol Lowering), SPARCL (Stroke Prevention by Aggressive Reduction in Cholesterol Levels), TNT (Treating to New Targets) - confirming the ability of statins to reduce stroke risk.Regarding primary prevention, post hoc analyses showed pravastatin reduced the relative risk of stroke by 9-11% (not statistically significant) in the ALLHAT-LLT and WOSCOPS trials, whereas atorvastatin reduced this risk by 27-48% in the ASCOT-LLA (p = 0.024) and CARDS trials. It remains to be established in prospective studies whether cholesterol-lowering is effective in the primary prevention of stroke. Regarding secondary prevention, in five placebo-controlled studies (4S, CARE, HPS, LIPID, MIRACL) involving a total of >40 000 patients with coronary heart disease (CHD), statin therapy reduced the relative risk of fatal or nonfatal stroke by 19-50% (p < or = 0.048); the largest decrease was produced by atorvastatin in the MIRACL study (-50%, p = 0.045). In addition, high-dosage atorvastatin reduced stroke risk by 25% (p = 0.02) relative to lower-dosage therapy in the TNT trial, and by 47% (p = 0.034) relative to 'usual' care in the GREACE study. A post hoc analysis of data for 3280 HPS study participants who had had a previous stroke revealed that simvastatin reduced major vascular events by 20% (p = 0.001).The SPARCL study assessed the secondary preventive efficacy of atorvastatin versus placebo in 4731 patients with a history of stroke or transient ischaemic attack (TIA), but without CHD. Atorvastatin reduced the adjusted relative risk of fatal or nonfatal stroke by 16% (p = 0.03), and that of fatal stroke alone by 43% (p = 0.03). Among secondary study endpoints, atorvastatin reduced the relative risks of stroke and TIA (-23%; p < 0.001), TIA alone (-26%; p = 0.004), and ischaemic stroke (-22%; p = 0.01). Overall, SPARCL study findings suggest that intensive atorvastatin therapy should be started immediately after a stroke or TIA. In summary, atorvastatin has developed a well defined role in the primary and secondary prevention of cerebrovascular disease, and appears to have a particularly prominent place in preventing such disease in CHD patients, and in the post-stroke and post-TIA setting in patients without CHD
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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