(August 24, 2010 - Insidermedicine)

From Delaware - A new report published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes compares risk with rosiglitazone and pioglitazone. Studying over 36,000 patients, researchers found that risk of a heart attack, heart failure, both or death were about 4% for each medication.

From Denmark - Certain antiviral drugs taken during pregnancy do not appear to cause birth defects, according to a report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Researchers studied nearly 900,000 births, finding that only 2.2% of children exposed to acyclovir, valacyclovir and famciclovir in the womb during the first trimester had  a major birth defect, compared with 2.4% among those not exposed.

And finally, from Boston - Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy patients have high survival rates from heart transplant , according to a report published in Circulation: Heart Failure. Studying over 26,000 transplant patients, researchers found that survival rates for HCM patients was 85% at 1 year post surgery, 75% at 5 years, and 61% at 10 years.