Feature Channels: Heart Disease

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New research by UT Southwestern cardiologists counters long-held beliefs that hospitals performing greater numbers of heart valve surgeries have better outcomes.

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A study of more than 400 adults with prehypertension, or stage 1 high blood pressure, found that combining a low-salt diet with the heart-healthy DASH diet substantially lowers systolic blood pressure — the top number in a blood pressure test — especially in people with higher baseline systolic readings.

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People with both HIV and risk factors for heart disease and stroke were less likely to be treated with cholesterol-lowering statin drugs and aspirin than patients without HIV.

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Infants with various forms of congenital heart disease require a stable source of blood flow to their lungs in order to survive until a more definitive operation can be performed. In a recent study, pediatric researchers compared two methods to provide that flow: a shunt to reroute blood and an implanted stent to maintain an open path for blood flow. They found that stents were preferable for selected patients.

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Mayo Clinic researchers have shown a link between which type of oral anticoagulant (blood-thinning medication) a patient takes to prevent a stroke and increased risks of kidney function decline or failure.

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By studying the genetic makeup of people who maintain clear arteries into old age, researchers led by UNC’s Jonathan Schisler, PhD, have identified a possible genetic basis for coronary artery disease (CAD), as well as potential new opportunities to prevent it.

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A tool designed to more accurately predict the risk of heart attack in older patients undergoing non-cardiac surgery works significantly better than traditional risk assessment tools. By having more accurate information, older patients and their physicians can make an informed decision on whether to undergo surgery.

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Swift action by two Army medical department officers from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences saved the life of a Texas woman who went into cardiac arrest on Veterans Day.

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Heart attack and stroke patients without medical insurance face “devastating” health care costs that can bankrupt them, research from UT Southwestern and other centers shows.

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Ganesh Halade has published a functional and structural compendium of the simultaneous changes taking place in the heart, spleen and kidneys in mice during the period of acute heart failure immediately following a heart attack and during the longer period of chronic heart failure that comes next.

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Anaheim Convention Center Anaheim, California Nov. 11-15

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Texas Biomedical Research Institute scientists have been granted funding from the National Institutes of Health to pursue a promising study on the ultimate causes of heart disease and metabolic disorders.

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A los científicos del Texas Biomedical Research Institute (Instituto de Investigación Biomédica de Texas) les han otorgado una beca por parte del National Institutes of Health (NIH) (Institutos Nacionales de Salud) para llevar a cabo un estudio prometedor sobre las causas principales de enfermedades del corazón y los trastornos metabólicos.

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Patients who go to the emergency room (ER) with chest pain often receive unnecessary tests to evaluate whether they are having a heart attack, a practice that provides no clinical benefit and adds hundreds of dollars in health-care costs, according to a new study from researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

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Patients showed a reduction in measures of frailty after surgery for left-ventricular-assist-device (LVAD)

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Individuals who have A, B, or AB blood types have an elevated risk of having a heart attack during periods of significant air pollution, compared to those with the O blood type, according to a new study from the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute and Brigham Young University.

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While patients who are discharged from the hospital after treatment for heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, or peripheral artery disease, should be on statin medications to reduce their risk of reoccurrence, very few of them remain on the drugs long-term — and many never even receive a statin prescription, according to a new study.

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In experiments with mice that have a rodent form of Marfan syndrome, Johns Hopkins researchers report that even modestly increasing stress on the animals’ hearts — at levels well-tolerated in normal mice — can initiate heart failure. The findings, described August 4 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation Insight, revealed a novel cellular pathway in heart tissue that leads to heart failure and may serve as a model for a new standard of treatment for children with this aggressive form of Marfan syndrome.

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Extreme ups and downs in systolic blood pressure may be just as deadly as having consistently high blood pressure, according to a new study from the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Salt Lake City.

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In a large population study that was the first of its kind, researchers found that a simple tool not requiring laboratory tests, the Fuster-BEWAT score, is as effective as the American Heart Association-recommended ICHS (Ideal Cardiovascular Health Index), which includes blood analysis of cholesterol and glucose.

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Heart failure patients discharged from the hospital with a reduced level of a common hormone produced by the heart had significantly lower rates of readmission and lower death rates.

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If you have a heart attack or stroke, it’s important to get your “bad” cholesterol measured by your doctor on a follow up visit. Researchers have found that one step is significantly associated with a reduced risk of suffering another serious cardiovascular episode.

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Patients with a prior history of heart attacks or stroke have better outcomes when cholesterol-lowering medications are used after they’re discharged from the hospital, according to a new study from the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Salt Lake City.

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Contrary to popular practice, a measure of the heart’s pumping function known as “left ventricular ejection fraction” is not associated with the long-term outcomes of hospitalized heart failure patients, a UCLA-led study of Medicare patients has found. Hospitalized heart failure patients in all age groups within the study and with all levels of ejection fraction had significantly lower rates of survival after five years and a higher risk of re-hospitalization than people in the United States without heart failure. Better treatments for heart failure and new ways of predicting patient outcomes are needed, researchers concluded.

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Worried whether your heart health is strong enough for sex? A new study may lay your fears to rest: The risk that sex would trigger a sudden cardiac arrest is exceedingly small.

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When it comes to your likelihood of receiving bystander CPR if you experience a Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) in public, it turns out your gender may play a lifesaving role. According to a new study from researchers in the Center for Resuscitation Science at Penn Medicine, which is being presented at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2017, men are more likely to receive bystander CPR in public than women.

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Heart failure (HF) affects approximately 5.7 million adults in the United States according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If not properly managed, HF can lead to frequent hospitalizations. A heart failure hospitalization should be viewed as a sentinel event. Five year survival after a heart failure hospitalization is only 20 percent, a prognosis that is worse than most cancer diagnoses. Importantly, if HF is properly managed by team of skilled heart failure clinicians, prognosis and quality of life can improve.

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A textbook guiding cardiologists on the latest treatments in cardiovascular medicine was recently published by two faculty members at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso (TTUHSC El Paso).

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Former NFL players were more likely to have enlarged aortas, but further study is needed to determine whether that puts them at greater risk for life-threatening aneurysms, researchers found.

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All babies across Europe should be routinely screened for critical congenital heart defects (CCHD) within 24 hours of their birth, say a group of experts led by a University of Birmingham Professor and Honorary Consultant Neonatologist at Birmingham Women's Hospital.

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Rural counties continue to rank lowest among counties across the U.S., in terms of health outcomes. A group of national organizations including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National 4-H Council are leading the way to close the rural health gap.

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ISPOR, the professional society for health economics and outcomes research, held several sessions on the topic of real-world evidence at its 20th Annual European Congress currently being held 4-8 November 2017 in Glasgow, Scotland, UK.

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Pregnant women today are more likely to have chronic conditions that could cause life-threatening complications than at any other time in the past decade – particularly poor women and those living in rural communities.

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NIH Data Commons Pilot Phase to seek best practices for storing, accessing, sharing and computing on biomedical data

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A new study led by Johns Hopkins researchers found that measures of connectivity within specific cerebral networks were strongly linked to long-term functional outcomes in patients who had suffered severe brain injury following a cardiac arrest.

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Results from the prospective, multicenter, randomized investigator-initiated REDUCE trial were reported today at the 29th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Sponsored by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF), TCT is the world’s premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine.

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The first trial to evaluate the safety of dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) for less than 12 months in ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) found six months of DAPT was non-inferior to 12 months of DAPT among patients treated with second-generation drug-eluting stents (DES).

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Elderly patients undergoing PCI often receive bare-metal stents (BMS) instead of drug-eluting stents (DES) to shorten the duration of dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) and reduce bleeding risk. However, results from the SENIOR trial found that compared with BMS, shorter DAPT combined with the Synergy bioabsorbable polymer DES leads to less adverse events without increasing bleeding risk.

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Hunters with risk factors for heart disease might worry more about having a heart attack while enjoying their sport than being hit by a stray bullet.

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A new study finds that the Harpoon Mitral Valve Repair System, an image-guided device based on technology developed at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, is safe and effective.

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Could short-term exposure to the average American diet increase one’s risk for developing diabetes and cardiovascular disease? According to a recent study funded by the American Heart Association (AHA), researchers from New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine (NYITCOM) provide compelling evidence to support this hypothesis.

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Thirty-day results from ABSORB IV, the largest randomized everolimus-eluting bioresorbable vascular scaffold (BVS) trial to date, found BVS to be noninferior to a cobalt-chromium everolimus-eluting stent (CoCr-EES) for target lesion failure (TLF).

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Analysis of the PARTNER 2A trial and the SAPIEN-3 Intermediate Risk registry found transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) to be highly cost-effective compared with surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR) in intermediate surgical risk patients with aortic stenosis.

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Sbarro Health Research Organization President Antonio Giordano introduces program at National Italian American Foundation 42nd Anniversary Gala Weekend In Washington D.C.

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A large-scale randomized trial examining the double kissing (DK) crush two-stent technique compared with provisional stenting (PS) in the treatment of true distal bifurcation lesions of the left main artery, found that the DK crush technique was associated with a lower rate of target lesion failure at one year.

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Results from the prospective, randomized, multicenter CULPRIT-SHOCK trial found that an initial strategy of culprit lesion only percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) reduces the composite of 30-day mortality and/or severe renal failure in patients with multivessel disease and cardiogenic shock complicating acute myocardial infarction.

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New study results from the EXCEL trial comparing the quality of life (QoL) of patients with left main coronary artery disease (LMCAD) receiving percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) versus coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) found significant and similar QoL improvement at three years, although a greater benefit was observed with PCI at one month.