(Reuters Health) The use of beta-blocker therapy in patients with congestive heart failure (CHF) complicated by airway disease does not increase the rate of respiratory events and may actually improve outcome, according to results presented here today at CHEST 2004, the 70th annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians.

Reuters Health: The results of a Danish study strongly indicate that the risk of stroke imposed by atrial fibrillation (AF) is significantly greater in women than in men.

“This finding is supported by other studies,” Dr. Jens Friberg from Bispebjerg University Hospital in Copenhagen noted in comments to Reuters Health. “Therefore, when evaluating patients with atrial fibrillation for anticoagulant therapy, the patient’s gender should be taken into account as an independent risk factor,” the researcher added.

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( Reuters Health) As reported in the October issue of Pediatrics, Dr. Edmond D. Shenassa, from Brown Medical School in Providence, Rhode Island, and Dr. Mary-Jean Brown, from Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, reviewed the findings of six studies that looked at the link between maternal smoking and excessive crying or colic in infants.

The investigators found that only one of the studies used Wessel’s “rule of threes” to define infantile colic: crying for at least 3 hours per day, at least 3 days per week, for at least 3 weeks. The other studies used less stringent criteria.

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(Reuters Health) Long-acting nifedipine, added to standard treatment for stable symptomatic angina pectoris, safely reduces the need for angiography and interventions for symptoms, according to results of the ACTION study.

In the mid 1990s, the safety of short-acting calcium-channel blockers was called into question, Dr. Philip A. Poole-Wilson and his associates explain in The Lancet, published online August 31st. To investigate clinical outcomes after extended therapy with long-acting calcium antagonists, the multinational research team designed ACTION — A Coronary Disease Trial Investigating Outcome with Nifedipine.

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(Reuters Health) When patients who routinely take low-dose aspirin are also treated with a COX-2 selective inhibitor, the incidence of ulcers increases to a rate comparable to that seen with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, according to a report in the August issue of Gastroenterology.

Low-dose aspirin alone is generally associated with a significant risk of serious gastrointestinal side effects, the study found, and enteric coating does not carry a lower risk for bleeding compared with plain aspirin.