KARACHI, Jan 3: The Pakistan Cardiac Society on Thursday organised a presentation meeting which discussed the efficacy of latest therapeutic agents in the management of heart failure and other congenital heart diseases.

The guest speaker, visiting professor from the New Jersey School of Medicine, USA, Prof Bunyad Haider, talked on ‘vascular biology for clinical procedure’ and discussed the role of high blood pressure and hyperlipidemia in the causation of ishemic heart disease.

He mentioned that increasing prevalence of diabetes all over the world also contributed to the rise in heart diseases. According to him, during 1990-1998 there was a 33 per cent rise in diabetic population. Moreover about 76 per cent of them were in the age group of 30-39 years.

Obesity, he said, also played a significant role in the onset of diabetes and heart diseases, and urged people to avoid the problem through diet and exercise.

Dr Mohammed Ishaq from the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, in his presentation, said that chronic heart failure was a very common and serious clinical condition affecting 5-7 per cent of the elderly population and more than 4 million people in the US suffered from heart failure.

He said the causes of heart failures included heart disease (heart attacks), high blood pressure, rheumatic heart disease, heart muscle diseases of unknown cause (cardiomyopathies), and thyroid diseases etc.

Highlighting the results of a latest study involving over 5,000 patients in 16 countries, he said that there was a 13.5 per cent reduction in all-cause morbidity and mortality with new therapeutic agents compared to placebo in the treatment of heart failure.

Prof Imran Ahmed from Ziauddin Medical University spoke on the ‘need and safety of statins in coronary artery diseases’. He said that statins were safe and effective cholesterol -lowering agents.