Clinical question	Bottom-line answer
1. Is dabigatran (Pradaxa) cost-effective compared with warfarin (Coumadin) for patients with atrial fibrillation?4	Dabigatran is only cost-effective for patients who have poorly controlled international normalized ratios while taking warfarin, or who are at high risk of bleeding and/or stroke. [See full POEM]
2. How many blood pressure measurements are necessary to accurately diagnose hypertension?5	Several blood pressure measurements, taken over time, should be averaged to obtain a patient's “true” blood pressure. Using a single measurement to determine whether blood pressure is controlled will yield false results more than 20 percent of the time. [See full POEM]
3. Is automated measurement of systolic blood pressure more predictive of home blood pressure than manual measurement?6	The use of automated blood pressure measurement, with the patient alone in an examination room, provides readings closer to ambulatory blood pressure monitoring and eliminates the white coat hypertension that occurs when physicians measure a patient's blood pressure. [See full POEM]
4. Is statin therapy effective in preventing cardiac events?7	In this analysis of patient data pooled from multiple studies, more intensive statin therapy was more effective than less intensive statin therapy in reducing the rate of major cardiovascular events (number needed to treat = 200 per year to prevent one additional cardiovascular event). Additionally, statins are more effective than placebo in preventing major cardiovascular events. [See full POEM]
5. Do statins for primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease in patients with elevated low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels reduce all-cause mortality?8	Statins reduce all-cause mortality in patients with hyperlipidemia, whether used for primary or secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease. This is a class effect of the drugs. [See full POEM]