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(Circulation. 2005;112:2219.)
© 2005 American Heart Association, Inc.

Issue Highlights

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

	EFFECT OF CUTS IN MEDICARE REIMBURSEMENT ON PROCESS AND OUTCOME OF CARE FOR ACUTE MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION PATIENTS, by Volpp et al.

 
The Medicare Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (BBA) was a major policy reform that reduced hospital payment nationally by about $116 billion. There have been significant concerns that revenue reductions of this magnitude would have adverse effects on quality of care. This study uses National Registry of Myocardial Infarction data on detailed process-of-care measures for patients admitted to hospitals with acute myocardial infarction and determines whether patients treated at hospitals that were more affected by the BBA experienced greater deficits in care than did patients at hospitals less affected. See p 2268.

	HEADACHES AND THE TREATMENT OF BLOOD PRESSURE: RESULTS FROM A META-ANALYSIS OF 94 RANDOMIZED PLACEBO-CONTROLLED TRIALS WITH 24 000 PARTICIPANTS, by Law et al.

 
Whether or not hypertension causes the symptom of headache remains controversial. Although observational data are conflicting, several single-drug treatment trials suggest a lower prevalence of headache among patients taking antihypertensive agents. To assess whether blood pressure lowering prevents headache, in this issue of Circulation, Law et al present their results of a meta-analysis of 94 randomized, placebo-controlled trials of 4 different classes of blood pressure–lowering drugs, encompassing data on 17 641 patients. Headache was fairly common among study participants. The results of this carefully conducted study provide important evidence to indicate that blood pressure lowering prevents headache. See p 2301.

	HIGH-RESOLUTION SPIRAL COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHIC CORONARY ANGIOGRAPHY IN PATIENTS REFERRED FOR DIAGNOSTIC CONVENTIONAL CORONARY ANGIOGRAPHY, by Mollet et al.

 
The evolution of multidetector computed tomographic (CT) technology for noninvasive angiography is proceeding rapidly. Current-generation scanners have improved spatial and temporal resolution as compared with previous iterations, allowing more complete visualization of the coronary tree and fewer nonevaluable segments. In this issue of Circulation, Mollet and colleagues report on the performance characteristics of 64-slice . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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