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Biomedical subjects

C Lenfant

Publications and source records attributed to C Lenfant.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1992

Funding biomedical research: a common ground for concern?

Despite record levels of support, concerns over the ability of individual investigators to obtain funding for their research have been growing within the biomedical research community. The concerns have been focused almost exclusively upon the outcomes of funding decisions, and have ignored the pressures that produce them. Yet, it is those pressures that constitute our 'common ground for concern'. Resources committed in response to the pressures from special interest groups are unavailable for general competition based upon scientific merit. We in the biomedical research community must recognize that such self-interested efforts to dedicate resources undermine the integrity of the existing processes for making funding decisions. As a community, we should instead attempt to ensure that adequate resources are available to support the best quality research.

Financing, Government↗
PubMed1992

Considerations regarding the cost and effectiveness of public and patient education programmes.

For nearly two decades, the National High Blood Pressure Education Programme has administered a programme of public, patient, and professional education in an effort to reduce uncontrolled hypertension, an important public health problem in the USA. A broad network has been established and many partners have joined forces to form the NHBPEP. During the tenure of the programme, awareness, treatment, and control rates for high BP have increased dramatically, and this has been associated with a nearly 57% reduction in age adjusted stroke mortality. In 1988, stroke cost this nation about $23.3 billion a year in direct and indirect costs. Much of this is attributed to uncontrolled hypertension. It seems likely that controlling hypertension saved nearly $1.5 billion in direct and indirect costs for stroke in one year alone. This is in addition to the other health care costs attributed to coronary heart disease that have been reduced as a result of treating high BP. A portion of this may be related to the NHBPEP.

Cost-Benefit Analysis↗
PubMed1991

Increasing the number of competing awards at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute: projections of a model.

In the mid 1980s, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) sought to extend the benefits of longer award terms to the research community by supporting requests for longer award terms that were scientifically justified. Although investigators welcomed the resultant increase in support stability, concerns were raised about the institute's ability to fund competing awards. A model was developed to assess alternative policies that might result in increased numbers of competing awards. Assuming that the NHLBI receives budget increases sufficient only to keep pace with inflation, the transitory effects of moving to the current policy of longer award terms should largely have passed by 1993. In the long term, the annual number of competing awards will exceed the average number funded between 1980 and 1983. To increase the annual number of competing awards over the long term would require either a reduction in the current percentage of five-year awards or an increase in the total number of active grants. A reduction in the current percentage of five-year awards would subject productive scientists to greater instability in their research support (that is, they would have to apply more frequently for grants) and would introduce greater variability in the number of competing awards available each year. A substantial increase in the total number of active NHLBI awards would be necessary to return the institute's competing awards to the levels of 1984 to 1988.

Financing, Government↗
PubMed1991

[Demographic trends and the burden of cardiovascular diseases].

The current burden of cardiovascular disease in the U.S. population and recent trends in morbidity, mortality and risk factors provide a perspective on heart disease in the 21st century. Projections of demographic trends for populations and predictions of the frequency, distribution and characteristics of cardiovascular disease in the future are offered with numerous reservations and subject to revision. Nonetheless, we can expect to see more patients with cardiovascular disease in the next few decades and these patients are likely to be older and to be from the less well-educated and poorer socioeconomic segments of society. Improvements in treatment for the initial cardiovascular event may result in increased survival of women and men suffering permanent damage or disability. There will also be better opportunities to prevent cardiovascular diseases through modifying risk factors in the general population and in high risk individuals. Non-invasive procedures will also increase opportunities for detecting and reversing preclinical atherosclerosis through hygienic and therapeutic measures.

Cardiovascular Diseases↗
PubMed1990

Implants, transplants, and other parts of the medicine of the future.

Today, therapies that rely on adding something "more than natural" to the patient are a commonplace of medical practice. Although we may view such therapies as recent developments of biomedical science and engineering, they are actually the culmination of efforts to replicate, replace, and enhance parts of the human anatomy that date from the early days of recorded history. A review of some of those early efforts is an instructive way to begin. It helps us to appreciate that current developments at the forefront of biomedical science and engineering will soon transform the implants and transplants of today into the relatively primitive implants and transplants of the past. A discussion of the present state of implants and transplants follows. It is necessary to allow us to appreciate the great potential offered by current biomedical science and engineering for future developments in the therapies of the "more than natural." And then, finally, we can offer a present view of the implants, transplants, and other parts of the medicine of the future.

Artificial Organs↗
PubMed1990

Epidemiology of blood pressure and predictors of hypertension.

Hypertension is a clinical disease with a prevalence sufficiently high in acculturated societies to warrant it being designated a serious public health problem. In population studies, blood pressure has been found to be a continuously distributed risk variable with mortality directly related to the level of blood pressure. Thus, hypertension is both a disease and a risk factor. Classic genetic studies suggest that the predisposition for the development of hypertension is an inherited trait that becomes manifest when coupled with one or more environmental insults. Risk factors for hypertension include age, weight, sedentary lifestyle, excessive dietary sodium intake, and excessive alcohol intake. Current and future research is being directed toward the identification of predictors of hypertension that can be conceptualized according to demographic, clinical, genetic, challenge-response, and laboratory predictors. The intent is to identify subjects with a high probability for the development of hypertension in advance of the rise in blood pressure so that appropriate interventions can be implemented as early as possible.

Child↗