Feature Channels: Heart Disease

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Use of FFRCT as a diagnostic tool has become more widespread since 2021, when the American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association endorsed FFRCT as a clinical pathway in its updated guidelines for chest pain evaluation and diagnosis. Dr. Rabbat's publications on FFRCT were referenced in these guidelines, including Loyola University Medical Center's real-world experience demonstrating the safe deferral of unnecessary invasive procedures utilizing an FFRCT pathway.

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People with diabetes are twice as likely to develop dementia as those without the disease. In a new study, people with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes who took the diabetes drug pioglitazone were less likely to later develop dementia than those who did not take the drug. The study is published in the February 15, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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People living in disadvantaged neighborhoods—areas with higher poverty levels and fewer educational and employment opportunities—had an increased risk of dying within a month of being hospitalized for stroke, epilepsy and other neurologic diseases compared to people living in neighborhoods with fewer disadvantages, according to new research published in the February 15, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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With February designated as American Heart Month, it’s a good reminder for people with cancer to monitor their cardiovascular health.

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Internationally recognized cardiologist in heart transplantation Jon Kobashigawa, MD, director of Advanced Heart Disease and the Heart Transplant Program in the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai, and chief medical officer of the California Heart Center Foundation, an affiliate of Cedars-Sinai, has been selected to receive the highly coveted 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT).

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If you look at Aidan Marcus, you would have no way of knowing everything he has gone through in his 17 months of life. His mom, Ambar, says, “He looks like a normal kid.” But when she was 22 weeks pregnant, she and her husband, Justin, who live in Silver Spring, Maryland, learned that their baby boy’s heart wasn’t developing properly. Aidan was diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), a congenital heart defect in which the left side of the heart is underdeveloped — a condition that affects about 1,000 newborns in the U.S. each year.

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Sleep irregularity — chronically disrupted sleep and highly variable sleep durations night after night — may increase the risk for atherosclerosis, according to a study led by Kelsie Full, PhD, MPH, of Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

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Marking the five-year anniversary of the $50 million gift that named the Smidt Heart Institute, Cedars Sinai is highlighting major research breakthroughs and clinical innovations pioneered by one of the nation’s leading destinations for cardiac care.

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Hearing that a child needs heart surgery can be overwhelming. Fortunately, at Ochsner Health and Ochsner Hospital for Children, patients and their families are in expert hands. Recent pediatric outcomes for congenital heart patients show the hospital system’s highly specialized surgeons performed significantly better than others in the region -- even when caring for the most complex cases. For the fifth year in a row, Ochsner’s surgical outcomes also continued to exceed national averages.

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Los investigadores de Mayo Clinic hicieron una revisión de los atletas que se trataron en Mayo durante un período de 20 años, y los hallazgos publicados en Mayo Clinic Proceedings sugieren que después de que la afección del paciente se haya evaluado y tratado de manera adecuada, es factible que los atletas puedan volver a sus actividades de forma segura.

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Atletas com doença cardíaca genética frequentemente são considerados inaptos a participar de esportes competitivos devido ao risco de parada cardíaca súbita. Embora a intenção dos médicos seja compreensível, será que essa é necessariamente a melhor abordagem?

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Preventing heart disease starts much earlier than you may realize, according to a new American Heart Association scientific statement published today in a Go Red For Women spotlight issue of the Association’s flagship, peer-reviewed journal Circulation.

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UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have mapped gene control elements in specialized cardiac cells responsible for coordinating heartbeats. The findings of the genome exploration study, published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, provide insight into how heartbeats are regulated and could impact diagnosis and risk prediction for a variety of common arrhythmias.

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The Society of Thoracic Surgeons has launched a new risk calculator to estimate the risk of mitral valve repair for patients with mitral valve prolapse and degenerative primary mitral regurgitation.

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A necklace that could help you stop smoking is now on the horizon. Northwestern Medicine researchers have developed a smart neck-worn device resembling a lapis blue pendant that detects a user’s smoking much more reliably than previous systems.

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New study of sodium content in foods may assist in reducing heart disease.

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A large international clinical study finds that patients with large strokes had a dramatically better recovery after endovascular thrombectomy plus medical management than patients receiving only standard medical management. The study was published Feb. 10 in the New England Journal of Medicine to coincide with its presentation at the International Stroke Conference in Dallas.

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A first-of-its-kind study finds a natural coconut sugar may help reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by improving blood vessel health and managing high blood pressure. The study is published ahead of print in the Journal of Applied Physiology.

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UK HealthCare and St. Claire HealthCare have announced a collaboration to expand cardiovascular services to the Morehead area. St. Claire HealthCare now offers Morehead-area residents the benefit of UK HealthCare physician expertise in subspeciality cardiovascular services as part of the UK Gill Heart and Vascular Institute’s Gill Affiliate Network.

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Morristown Medical Center’s Gagnon Cardiovascular Institute’s structural heart program reached a significant milestone of performing over 4,000 transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) procedures with well over 650 in 2022 alone.

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Binghamton University Assistant Professor Tracy Hookway has received funding to create 2D and 3D models of human cardiac cells and investigate their functions.

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Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women and men in the United States. It causes one in every four U.S. deaths.

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Researchers have uncovered a way to reprogram donor hearts using medication to boost the production of a beneficial enzyme that both increases the amount of time they can be stored and transported, as well as improves their function after they are transplanted. The medication, previously used to treat seizures, neutralized the cumulative stress in both human and pig hearts by instructing the donor heart to produce antioxidants and anti-inflammatory proteins while preserved on ice.

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As the nation continues to recognize American Heart Month, the Smidt Heart Institute’s Ruchira Garg, MD, director of Congenital Noninvasive Cardiology in the Guerin Family Congenital Heart Program at Cedars-Sinai, and Susanna Tran, MD, sat down with the Cedars-Sinai Newsroom to spotlight specialized fetal imaging.

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Ochsner Health Blog by Dr. Salima Qamruddin and Dr. Nadia Abelhad

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Ochsner Health Blog by Dr. Ryan Boehm, cardiologist

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Adults ages 50 and older who lived near dense fast food and unhealthy food environments known as “food swamps” had a higher risk of stroke compared to those who lived in areas with fewer retail and fast food choices, according to preliminary research to be presented at the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference 2023.

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Experts from the Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center in the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai are available for interviews to commemorate the 18th-annual Linda Joy Pollin Women’s Heart Health Day, Feb. 3.

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Scott Stewart, DNP, APNC, CNL, Mechanical Circulatory Support Program supervisor at Hackensack Meridian Hackensack University Medical Center, co-authored a first-of-its-kind textbook titled, “A Guide to Mechanical Circulatory Support: A Primer for Ventricular Assist Device (VAD) Clinicians.”

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University of Virginia researchers and their collaborators have identified genes that play key roles in the development of coronary artery disease, the No. 1 cause of death worldwide.

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By: Bill Wellock | Published: February 2, 2023 | 9:16 am | SHARE: February is a time to think about matters of the heart.That includes heart health.The American Heart Association sponsors “American Heart Month” every February to promote good cardiovascular health. Understanding the risk factors of heart disease and how to live a heart-healthy lifestyle goes a long way toward improving quality of life.

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Heart rhythm disorders like atrial fibrillation and sudden cardiac arrest have made headlines in recent months, prompting many to learn more about how the heart beats.

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Over four percent of deaths in cities during the summer months are due to urban heat islands, and one third of these deaths could be prevented by reaching a tree cover of 30%, according to a modelling study published in The Lancet and led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), an institution supported by “la Caixa” Foundation.

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After hospital discharge, people hospitalized for sepsis or who developed it while hospitalized had a 38% higher risk of rehospitalization for all causes and a 43% higher risk of rehospitalization for cardiovascular causes compared to people without sepsis during hospitalization.

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Know your numbers? A Penn State Health cardiologist says a lipid panel can help you stave off a heart attack.

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Below are some of the latest articles that have been added to the Surgery and the Transplantation channels on Newswise, a free source for journalists.

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A roundup of the latest medical discoveries and faculty news at Cedars-Sinai.

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UT Southwestern physician-scientist Hesham Sadek, M.D., Ph.D., has received the prestigious National Institutes of Health (NIH) Outstanding Investigator Award to support his ongoing research into mechanisms behind heart regeneration that could lead to treatments for heart failure.

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A new biomaterial that can be injected intravenously, reduces inflammation in tissue and promotes cell and tissue repair. The biomaterial was tested and proven effective in treating tissue damage caused by heart attacks in both rodent and large animal models. Researchers also provided proof of concept in a rodent model that the biomaterial could be beneficial to patients with traumatic brain injury and pulmonary arterial hypertension.

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Heart disease is the leading cause of death among women in the U.S., and a type of heart attack called myocardial infarction with non-obstructive coronary arteries (MINOCA), which predominantly affects women, is garnering increased attention.

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The bottom line: before, during and after cancer treatment, heart health is critical. Andrew M. Evens, DO, MBA, MSc, associate director for Clinical Services at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey and medical director of the Oncology Service Line at RWJBarnabas Health, is a participating physician in the Cardio-Oncology Program at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, the state’s leading cancer program, in partnership with RWJBarnabas Health, shares more on the topic.

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The annual incidence of sports-related sudden cardiac arrest in older adults is rare: 2 to 3 cases per 100,000 people.