The 5 Most Misdiagnosed Diseases

5 mistakes 2One simple way of reducing your chances of developing a cardiovascular disease is by getting more preventative screenings. Based on a CDC report, nearly one-third of U.S. adults have high cholesterol and high blood pressure, making it all the more important that people take this preventative step. This sheds light on next-generation cholesterol-lowering medications like oft-highlighted Liptruzet which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in May and could see a bump in sales if more people took this preventative step. Liptruzet, which combines the now generic LDL-fighting power of Pfizer‘s  (NYSE: PFE )  Lipitor, with the cholesterol absorption inhibiting prowess of Merck‘s  (NYSE: MRK )  Zetia, lowered LDL-cholesterol (the bad type) by 53% to 61% in patients — a much bigger reduction than each drug delivered individually.

No. 4: Pulmonary emboli A pulmonary embolism is a blockage of an artery in the lungs by any number of things, including fat, blood clots, and tumor cells. Perhaps the biggest factor to be concerned with here relates to your chance of developing a blood clot following surgery. Last month we discovered that venous thromboembolisms (deep-vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolisms) are the leading cause of preventable patient death in hospitals with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimating that 1.1% of all surgical patients will develop a blood clot. The key here would be for physicians to properly screen for and diagnose patients that have a higher risk of developing a blood clot in a post-surgical setting.

Diagnostic equipment could be called on to come to the rescue here, but I see this as a huge opportunity for Pfizer and Bristol-Myers Squibb‘s  (NYSE: BMY)  recently approved blood-thinner Eliquis. At the moment, Eliquis is only approved to treat blood clots in patients with atrial fibrillation, but could see sales surge if it gets the expanded indication to treat post-surgical patients. Even if it’s just a short-term treatment (the threat for post-surgical blood clots usually abates after a few weeks), the boost in sales could be enormous, and the chance of developing a blood clot for surgical patients could be dramatically reduced.

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