Hall-Garcia Cardiology
6624 Fannin, #2480
Houston, Texas 77030-2312
P: (713) 529-5530
F: (713) 791-1786
e-mail · cardiologists locations

Cardiology News
	08/20/2010 - Hall-Garcia Cardiology Associate's own Dr. James M. Wilson, Director of Cardiology Education, was honored by his hometown, Jena, Louisiana, on Aug. 20 with the Key to the City.


	07/15/2010 - Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital Moves Up in National Heart Center Rankings to No. 4 U.S.News & World Report Top 10 for 20th Consecutive Year

05/25/2010 - Dr. Neil Strickman, Co-Director of the Peripheral Vascular Interventional program at THI at St. Luke's contributes to major milestone in improved patient care, as lab performs its 1000th carotid artery stent procedure.

03/28/2010 - Dr. Strickman recently attended the TCT at CIT in Beijing China in late March 2010. He was one of a handful of US physicians personally invited by the president of the society to help educate and train local physicians in the field of Peripheral Vascular Disease (PVD).

While at the meeting he was invited by CORDIS Johnson and Johnson Asia Pacific to help inaugurate the Endovascular club.

During a recent 2 week trip to southeast Asia Dr Neil E Strickman ran a teaching course as follows: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Jan 8, 2010:

First PVD Symposium in Putrajaya, Malaysia. There were 20 physicians in attendance. Live demonstrations of CV technology were shown

Then he flew to Penang, the top of the Malaysian peninsula to attend as a guest lecturer at the PV Symposia. Many of the trainees and nurses came away with a distinct change in the way patients should be examined and treated

From there he traveled a short distance to Bangkok, Thailand to perform opening of totally occluded leg blood vessels with the local expert physicians

In Khonkein, Thailand ( on the Laos border) again Carotid intervention was reintroduced. Multiple doctors attended this large training session

The culmination of the trip was in Taipei, Taiwan where he was one of the major speakers in the TTT (Taiwan Transcatheter Therapeutics).

We took a breath taking trip to the Taroko Gorge which revealed spectacular images.

Personalized training at the Buddhist hospital was well received. Dr Strickman has long been recognized as a leader of patient care, physician education and academic prowess in the both the USA and SE Asia

Eleventh Symposium on Cardiac Arrhythmias: Practical Approach to Heart Rhythm Disorders

02/20/10 - "This year's Symposium on Cardiac Arrhythmias was an enormous success, with over 150 attendees from across Texas. hosted by Dr. Ali Massumi, this year's guest speakers were Dr. Thomas Peter from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in California, speaking about supraventricular tachycardia, and Dr. Michael Gold of the Medical University of South Carolina, speaking about cardiac resynchronization therapy. In addition, all the members of the electrophysiology section of Hall-Garcia Cardiology Associates contributed talks ranging from ablation and medical therapy of atrial fibrillation to management of intracardiac devices for non-electrophysiologists."

01/11/10 - "We are happy to announce that, as of February 2010, Dr. Virendra Mathur will bring his more than forty years of experience to the Sugar Land community, and will be available to see patients by appointment in Sugar Land. He j oins Dr. Neil Strickman (Coronary, Peripheral, and Aortic Endovascular Intervention), Dr. Raymond Stainback (Echocardiography and Nuclear Cardiology) and Dr. Christopher Frank (Cardiac Electrophysiology) in seeing patients in our Sugar Land office. Parking at our Sugar Land location is free, and both new and established patients are invited to ask for an appointment there."

Past Cardiology News

5/01/09 - Arrhythmogenicity of weight-loss supplements marketed on the Internet

This paper was presented as an oral abstract at Heart Rhythm 2008, San Francisco, California.

Alireza Nazeri, MD, Ali Massumi, MD, James M. Wilson, MD, Christopher M. Frank, MD, Michael Bensler, MD, Jie Cheng, MD, PhD, Mohammad Saeed, MD, Abdi Rasekh, MD, Mehdi Razavi, MD

published online 17 February 2009.

Background
We examined nonprescription weight-loss supplements marketed on the Internet for ingredients with potential arrhythmogenic and life-threatening cardiac adverse effects.

Objective
We aimed to define the risks of life-threatening cardiac adverse effects that are associated with weight-loss supplements marketed on the Internet.

Methods
We entered the key words “weight-loss supplements” and “diet pills” into three popular Internet search engines. The top four nonoverlapping hits from each search engine were purchased. After receipt, the products and their ingredient lists were inspected, and Medline and the Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database were searched for reports of significant associations between each ingredient and various key words for life-threatening cardiac adverse effects.

Results
All supplements had the list of ingredients on the label. We identified 60 different ingredients (7.25 ± 4.66 per supplement; range 1–21). Eleven ingredients representing eight different substances (because multiple names were used for some substances) were each associated with two or more reports of life-threatening cardiac complications or death. Eight of the 12 products contained one or more such ingredients, but none of these eight products had warnings about life-threatening cardiac adverse effects on the Web pages, on the labels, or in the package inserts. One product contained ma huang (Chinese ephedra), even though the marketing of ephedra-containing products is banned in the United States.

Conclusions
The Internet provides easy access to weight-loss supplements, several of which contain ingredients with potentially life-threatening adverse effects. There is a need for increased public education and awareness regarding such weight-loss products.

Click here to download full text pdf.

Hall-Garcia Cardiology 6624 Fannin, #2480 Houston, Texas 77030-2312 P: (713) 529-5530 F: (713) 791-1786 e-mail · cardiologists locations

Hall-Garcia Cardiology
6624 Fannin, #2480
Houston, Texas 77030-2312
P: (713) 529-5530
F: (713) 791-1786
e-mail · cardiologists locations