Feature Channels: Heart Disease

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A large-scale randomized trial examining percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) versus coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) in patients with left main coronary artery disease (LMCAD) and low-intermediate SYNTAX scores found that there was no significant difference in three-year outcomes between the two treatments, with a reduction in 30-day major adverse events with PCI.

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Coronary artery bypass (CABG) surgery is the standard treatment for revascularization in patients with left main coronary artery (LMCA) disease, but use of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for this indication is increasing. Findings from the Nordic–Baltic–British Left Main Revascularization Study (NOBLE) trial found that despite similar mortality, the five-year risk of major adverse events was higher after PCI compared to CABG for the treatment of unprotected LMCA disease.

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The sudden death of a 13-year-old boy resulted in more than 20 relatives to be incorrectly diagnosed as having a potentially lethal heart rhythm condition. This erroneous diagnosis occurred as a result of inappropriate use of genetic testing and incorrect interpretation of genetic test results, according to Mayo Clinic research published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

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The two-year results from LEADERS FREE, the first randomized clinical trial dedicated to high bleeding risk patients treated with one month of dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT), found that a polymer-free drug-coated stent (DCS) remained both significantly safer and more effective than the comparator bare-metal stent (BMS) used in the trial.

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Results of a large-scale, multicenter study found that treatment with two thin-strut drug-eluting stents were both non-inferior to a durable polymer drug-eluting stent and showed favorable clinical outcomes at one year in treating an all-comers population with a high proportion of patients with acute coronary syndromes.

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Although percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is most commonly guided by angiography alone, results from a new study investigating adjunctive imaging modalities showed that the use of a novel optical coherence tomography (OCT)-based stent sizing strategy results in similar minimal stent area (MSA) compared to intravascular ultrasound (IVUS)-guided PCI. Imaging-guided PCI (with both OCT and IVUS) also resulted in improved stent expansion and acute stent-based procedural success compared to angiography-guided PCI.

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The large multinational randomized BIONICS study found that a novel ridaforolimus-eluting stent (BioNIR) was non-inferior to a zotarolimus-eluting stent (Resolute) for one-year clinical outcomes in a broad, less selected ‘more comers’ population. Results of this trial will be submitted to the FDA for U.S. approval of this novel drug-eluting stent.

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Optical coherence tomography (OCT) provides safe and improved guidance for patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention to treat coronary artery disease, according to results from the ILLUMIEN III: OPTIMIZE PCI trial.

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The Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) is pleased to announce the launch of a new international journal focusing on the diagnosis and treatment of structural heart disease and the importance of the heart team in managing these disorders.

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Halloween is here, and with it come haunted houses and corn mazes, mummies, ghosts and creatures of the night jumping out at you—all sure to give a harmless fright, or so we thought. Can that scary monster sneaking up behind you actually scare you to death? The answer may be as spooky as it gets.

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NCDR ACTION Registry–GWTG Platinum award recognizes high standards of care

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Four innovative studies exploring ways to reduce complications related to heart surgery or minimize patient mortality due to risks associated with low blood pressure and surgery were highlighted during the Anesthesiology Major Trials Session held at the ANESTHESIOLOGY® 2016 annual meeting.

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Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center’s Hamon Center for Regenerative Science and Medicine have identified a pathway essential to heart formation and, in the process, unveiled a mechanism that may explain how some previously puzzling segments of the genome work.

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The Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) is pleased to announce the launch of the new TCTMD (www.tctmd.com), the leading online resource for cutting-edge news and information in interventional cardiology and beyond.

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Fine particulate matter air pollution may be associated with blood vessel damage and inflammation among young, healthy adults, according to new research in Circulation Research, an American Heart Association journal.

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Queen Latifah and UCLA cardiologist Dr. Karol Watson discuss what patients and their caregivers need to know about living with heart failure.

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UAB doctors say stroke prevention treatments are not one-size-fits-all, and treatment options can be individualized using this hierarchical ranking.

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Patients who had a stent procedure or heart bypass surgery and continued with their prescribed medical therapy had significantly better outcomes than non-adherent patients, according to a new study.

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For the first time, fetal medicine experts have performed prenatal heart surgery to remove a life-threatening tumor, called intrapericardial teratoma. The patient, who underwent the operation at 24 weeks of gestation while in his mother’s womb, is now a healthy three-year-old preschooler.

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The 28th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium sponsored by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) will feature a number of first-in-human and early feasibility trials that could impact future clinical practice. TCT, the world’s premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine, will take place October 29 – November 2, 2016 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC.

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A new study, whose preliminary results will be presented today at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress and soon be published in the Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation and Prevention, shows that even low physical fitness, up to 20% below the average for healthy people, is sufficient to produce a preventive effect on most of the risk factors that affect people with cardiovascular disease.

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• Women are more likely than men to develop kidney damage following cardiovascular surgery, but researchers found no association between sex and risk of kidney damage when they analyzed studies that took patient characteristics and other factors into account.

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For decades, research has suggested a link between oral health and inflammatory diseases affecting the entire body — in particular, heart attacks and strokes. Results from a randomized trial of a novel plaque identifying toothpaste, Plaque HD®, produced statistically significant reductions in dental plaque and inflammation throughout the body as measured by high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), a sensitive marker for future heart attacks and strokes.

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– Recognizing heart failure as one of the most widespread and pernicious public health issues in the United States, Northwestern Memorial Hospital physicians and staff focused significant attention and resources on treating people in all stages of the disease, an effort that has the hospital ranked first in the United States for heart failure survival.

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Thousands of people die every year because people are not carrying out life saving CPR on cardiac arrest victims before emergency services arrive, according to new research from the British Heart Foundation (BHF).

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According to new research from the University of Missouri, minimal exercise may be all it takes for postmenopausal women to better regulate insulin, maintain metabolic function and help prevent significant weight gain. These findings suggest that women can take a proactive approach and may not need to increase their physical activity dramatically to see significant benefits from exercise.

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Mount Sinai Health System urges the general public, especially students, to learn lifesaving CPR and how to use an automated external defibrillator to reduce sudden cardiac death rates.

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In a study published in the journal JAMA Cardiology, Dr. Dawood Darbar, chief of cardiology at the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System, and colleagues found that risk prediction models for atrial fibrillation developed by investigators on the Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology (CHARGE) trial, did not accurately predict incidence of the condition when it was applied to the EMRs of a large group of patients.

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After analyzing 10 years of medical tests on more than 2,700 people in a federally funded heart disease study, researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine and elsewhere conclude that taking calcium in the form of supplements may raise the risk of plaque buildup in arteries and heart damage, although a diet high in calcium-rich foods appears be protective.

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The family’s medical journey brought them to pediatric heart specialists at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, resulting in Nick and Janelle’s passion to honor their daughter and impact pediatric congenital heart care and research for children everywhere.

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The Canadian Cardiovascular Society (CCS) has published an important update to its guidelines for the management of dyslipidemia - lipid metabolism disorders – that can cause cardiovascular disease. The guidelines update evidence-based guidance for cardiologists and other clinicians regarding which patients will benefit from statin therapy. There is also new information on the use of health behavior modifications and non-statin medications to help doctors make the difficult decisions about when to use drugs to treat cholesterol and when other approaches are possible.

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Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center and the Data Science Institute at Columbia University have uncovered a potentially dangerous drug interaction using data science.

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Wolters Kluwer, a leading global provider of information and point-of-care solutions for the healthcare industry, announced today that “A Practical Guide to Fetal Echocardiography: Normal and Abnormal Hearts 3rd Edition” by Alfred Abuhamad and Rabih Chaouj was named the British Medical Association (BMA) Book of the Year for 2016. Four other Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW) titles also were highly commended in their categories.

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A new systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials has concluded that eating oat fibre can reduce all three markers.

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Berkeley Lab researchers have compiled a comprehensive genome-wide map of more than 80,000 enhancers considered relevant to human heart development and function. They went on to test two of the enhancers in mice, showing that when the enhancers were missing, the heart worked abnormally.

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Jeffrey L. Carson, MD, a Rutgers physician who has championed the movement to use less blood in transfusions has been awarded more than $16.1 million by the National Institutes of Health National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) to lead a nation-wide clinical trial aiming to establish evidence that can be used to set transfusion standards for patients who have had a heart attack, to improve their survival rates and reduce the risk of recurrence.

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In a study appearing in the October 4 issue of JAMA, Paul S. Chan, M.D., of Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute, Kansas City, and colleagues evaluated the association of hypothermia treatment with survival to hospital discharge and with favorable neurological survival at hospital discharge among patients with in-hospital cardiac arrest.

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Mount Sinai physicians have become the first in the country to perform cardiac ablation procedures using a new, state-of-the-art catheter.

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AMGA today submitted comments on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) proposed Cardiac Rehabilitation and Incentive Payment Model rule. Given the mandatory nature of the program, AMGA is interested in its success and offered comments on calculating discounted target prices, measuring quality performance, risk adjustment, and evaluating the demonstration.

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Cardiovascular disease has become the leading cause of death for those living with HIV, as the infection has moved from a terminal disease to a chronic illness. An article in Critical Care Nurse provides an overview of risk factors, pathophysiology and unique treatment options related to cardiovascular disease in persons living with HIV.

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Taylor and his team used an electron microscope to capture the first three-dimensional image of a tiny filament, or strand, of an essential muscle that the palm-sized water bug Lethocerus indicus uses to fly. . This image shows for the first time the individual molecules in the filament in a relaxed state, which is necessary to re-extend muscles.

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Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, Director, Mount Sinai Heart, and Physician-in-Chief of The Mount Sinai Hospital, has been appointed Co-Chair of the newly established Consensus Committee on Global Health and the Future of the United States.

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Older adults can develop cardiovascular risk factors later in life, according to a study from UAB.

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Although rare, sudden cardiac death in young athletes raises serious concerns, especially because most victims report no warning symptoms. Pre-participation screening aims to identify children, adolescents, and young adults at risk, but there is not yet consensus regarding the best way to accomplish this. A new report in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology sheds light on this controversial topic by describing a new screening protocol that offers advantages over American Heart Association (AHA) recommendations and shows that the electrocardiogram (ECG) is the best single screening method.

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In a recent study, a Yale Cancer Center team determined that men who received hormonal therapy for prostate cancer had a net harm if they had a prior history of a heart attack.

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A Northwestern Medicine cardiac surgeon was the first in Illinois and second in the United States to implant a sutureless aortic valve in a patient with coronary artery disease through a newly U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved, minimally invasive delivery system.

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Penn Medicine Researchers completed a pilot analysis of archived tweets on cardiovascular disease. In a study published today in JAMA Cardiology, researchers sifted through a sample of approximately ten billion tweets posted between 2009 and 2015, and found more than 500,000 English-language, U.S.-originating tweets that related to cardiovascular disease.

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Building on the results of a recent Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute study published just six months ago, the Department of Defense has awarded a $10 million grant to fund a cardiac cell therapy trial for patients diagnosed with a common but difficult-to-treat form of heart failure.

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Heart disease patients enrolled in a clinical trial - designed to test whether a stronger dose of the influenza vaccine can prevent death or hospitalization due to a heart attack, heart failure, stroke or pneumonia - have begun receiving their first flu shots in Toronto and Boston.

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