Jon Blatchford

TL;DR: The use of dabigatran in patients with mechanical heart valves was associated with increased rates of thromboembolic and bleeding complications, as compared with warfarin, thus showing no benefit and an excess risk.

TL;DR: Tiotropium Respimat® SMI 5 μg demonstrated sustained improvements in patients with COPD relative to placebo and similar to the 10 μg dose but with a lower frequency of anticholinergic adverse events.

TL;DR: The RE-DUAL PCI trial (NCT 02164864) is a phase 3b, a strategy of prospective, randomized, open-label, blinded-endpoint trial as mentioned in this paper, where the main objective is to evaluate dual antithrombotic therapy with dabigatran etexilate (110 or 150 mg twice daily) and a P2Y12 inhibtor (either clopidogrel or ticagrelor) in nonvalvular AF patients who have undergone percutaneous coronary intervention with stenting.

TL;DR: The EMPULSE trial as discussed by the authors evaluated the clinical benefit and safety of empagliflozin in patients hospitalized with chronic heart failure (HF) with reduced ejection fraction.

TL;DR: BI 671800 at a dose of 400 mg administered for 4 weeks with fluticasone propionate did not provide clinical improvement in patients with asthma; reasons for this are unclear, but it may be due to insufficient inhibition of the CRTH2 receptor at the doses used.