Continued: Home defibrillators save lives, but so does CPR

Having a defibrillator at home can help a heart attack survivor live through a second crisis, but so can CPR and at a much lower cost. That's the bottom line from the first test of using these heart-shocking devices in the home.

The devices worked. But so few people in the study were stricken at home and CPR by spouses in the comparison group was so good that the 7,000-person study wound up being be too small to prove that a defibrillator can improve survival.

It did for South Carolinian James Kennedy. For three years, his family lugged one to the grocery store, to church and on trips. "Thank God we had it" in August, when his daughter used it to save his life at home, said Kennedy's wife, Debra.

Others also benefited -- seven friends and neighbors of people in the study. They got a lifesaving heart shock, too.

"There's no downside" to having a home defibrillator, said study leader Dr. Gust Bardy of the Seattle Institute for Cardiac Research.

However, they cost $1,000 or more. And others say health dollars are better spent boosting CPR training. Arguments to expand access to defibrillators "have an emotional quality" not justified by cost and success rates, said Dr. David Callans of the University of Pennsylvania.

He wrote an editorial that the New England Journal of Medicine published on the Internet along with the study. Results also were given Tuesday at an American College of Cardiology conference in Chicago.

They come a day after the American Heart Association changed guidelines to recommend hands-only CPR -- pressing vigorously on a victim's chest until help arrives.

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AUTISM SIGNS IN EXTREME PREEMIES

A small study of toddlers finds that about one-quarter of babies born very prematurely had signs of autism on an early screening test. The research is preliminary since formal autism testing wasn't done. But the results are provocative, suggesting preemies may face greater risks of developing autism than previously thought.

That suggests autism may be an underappreciated consequence of medical advances enabling the tiniest of premature babies to survive, said lead author Catherine Limperopoulos, a researcher at McGill University in Montreal and Children's Hospital in Boston.

She emphasized that the results don't mean extreme prematurity causes autism, but rather that it might be among contributing factors.

DRUG MAY EASE NIACIN SIDE EFFECTS

Researchers have reported a new combination drug that will allow patients to take high doses of the cholesterol-lowering vitamin niacin without a painful and embarrassing side effect known as flushing.

Niacin has been shown to be an effective agent for lowering bad cholesterol, increasing good cholesterol and reducing cardiovascular risk, but three-quarters of those who take it stop within a year because of flushing, which is characterized by a severe reddening of the skin.

Nearly half the patients taking the highest dose of the new drug, called Cordaptive, had no flushing, compared with only 22 percent of those taking a lower dose of a time-release version of niacin alone, said Dr. Michael J. Koren of the Jacksonville Center for Clinical Research in Florida.

The improved tolerability "may prevent more patients from discontinuing therapy," Koren said of his findings, which were presented Monday at a Chicago meeting of the American College of Cardiology and the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions.

OLDER CORNEAS GOOD FOR TRANSPLANTS

Older corneas seem to transplant as well as younger ones, says a major new study, which raises the potential of expanding the age of cornea donation to 75. It may sound surprising. After all, when it comes to most types of transplants, younger organs and tissue are more coveted -- and there has been controversy among corneal surgeons about using older eye tissue, too.

But government-funded researchers randomly assigned cornea recipients to get either younger or older tissue and found the corneas of both groups survived just as well five years later. The study is in the journal Ophthalmology.

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