Vasodilator Stress Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging Shows Promise in the Identification of Fatal Heart Disease
The findings of a study by Heitner et al. published online on February 8 in JAMA cardiology has provided a foundational motivation to study the comparative effectiveness of stress CMR…
Microvascular and Endothelial Dysfunction Found in Nonculprit Artery In Over Ninety Percent of STEMI Patients, According to a Study
Findings of a study published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Interventions reflected that microvascular and endothelial dysfunction in the non-culprit artery territory in patients with STEMI were very common. Additionally, in 93%…
Hospitalizations for Stroke Associated With Infective Endocarditis and Opioid Use: National Trends
A recent study published in Circulation Stroke conducted by Omran et al. reported that the US hospitalization rates for stroke associated with infective endocarditis and opioid use were stable for…
EuroCTO: A Simple Scoring System to Predict Technical Success when Performing CTO PCI
A study by Zsolt Szijgyarto and his colleagues published in JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions has derived the EuroCTO (CASTLE) from the largest database of CTO cases to date and offers a…
Does Aggressive Control of Blood Pressure Decrease the Risk of Cognitive Impairment?
So far, there has been no definitive treatment for dementia. There are medications that provide symptomatic relief but there has been an advance towards developing disease-modifying medications. Due to the long…
Triglyceride-Lowering LPL Variants and LDL-C–Lowering LDLR Variants Are Associated With Similar Lower Risk of Coronary Heart Disease, Says a New Study
A study by Ference et al. published in JAMA showed that triglyceride-lowering LPL variants and LDL-C–lowering LDLR variants were associated with similar lower risk of CHD per unit difference in…
Early Switch from Intravenous to Oral Antibiotic Therapy for Left-Sided Endocarditis
Among patients who had left-sided infective endocarditis (IE) caused by common bacteria, a shift from intravenous (IV) to oral antibiotic treatment was noninferior to continued IV antibiotic treatment, according to…
Randomized Trial Comparing Bilateral with Single Internal-Thoracic-Artery Grafting for CABG Shows No Significant Difference in All-Cause Mortality
A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that among patients who were scheduled for CABG and had been randomly assigned to undergo bilateral or single…
Debunking Extreme Exercise and Coronary Artery Calcification: Can Those with ‘Hearts of Stone’ Run to Death? A Recent Study Says No
Evidence suggests that men with high physical activity have higher levels of coronary artery calcification (CAC), but very little data is available on whether these men should continue to exercise…
Aspirin Use for Primary Prevention Associated With Lower Risk of Cardiovascular Events and an Increased Risk of Major Bleeding
An original investigation by Zheng et al. published in JAMA showed that the use of aspirin in individuals without cardiovascular disease was associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular events and…
Did the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program Impact Heart Failure Readmission or Mortality?
An article by Sandhu et al. published in the American Heart Journal reported that on using critical access hospitals (CAHs) as a control group, the introduction of financial penalties was…
Long-Term Consequences Post Device Closure of Patent Foramen Ovale in Patients With Cryptogenic Embolism
Recently, Jérôme Wintzer-Wehekind M.D. and his team at Quebec Heart & Lung Institute, Laval University, Quebec, Canada conducted a vast cohort study published in the Journal of American College of…
FFRCT Provides Superior Functional Assessment of Coronary Stenosis When Compared With Traditional Functional Imaging Techniques
A study published in JACC reported that fractional flow reserve (FFR) computation from coronary computed tomography angiography (CTA) datasets (FFRCT) had higher diagnostic performance as compared with standard coronary CTA,…
FDA Issues Cautionary ‘Dear Doctor’ Letter In Response to Study Reporting Increased Deaths with Paclitaxel-Coated Devices in PAD
The FDA issued a Dear Doctor letter while investigating a potential safety signal with paclitaxel-coated balloons and stents used to treat peripheral artery disease. "This review will focus on the…
High-Sensitivity Troponin I Can Predict Mortality in Stable Patients Suspected to Have CAD
Heightened levels of high sensitivity troponin I (hsTnI) can predict the near-term risk of death, acute myocardial infarction (MI), and hospitalization for unstable angina in stable symptomatic patients suspected to…
Higher Dietary Fiber Intake Associated with Reduction in Incidence of Non-Communicable Diseases
A series of systematic reviews and meta-analyses have depicted how findings from prospective studies and clinical trials associated with relatively high intakes of dietary fiber and whole grains were complementary,…
Epidemiological Approach Shows Low LDL Levels Do Not Increase the Risk of Sepsis
A fascinating cohort study published in JAMA Network Open conducted by QiPing Feng, Ph.D., and colleagues from Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, refuted previous studies that showed a significant…
Administration of Cangrelor In Addition to Crushed Ticagrelor Bridges Gap of Antiplatelet Inhibition in Patients Undergoing Primary PCI
According to a new study, Cangrelor could serve to bridge the gap of antiplatelet inhibition in patients undergoing primary percutaneous coronary intervention (P-PCI) for acute coronary syndrome, who were administered…
Identification of a Risk Locus Suggests SCAD May be Genetically Determined
In the largest study conducted to date for Spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD), the first genetic risk factor was identified. The findings, published in JACC, suggested that this genetic link…
Women in Interventional Cardiology: ‘If You Love it, You Will Make it!’
According to a recent publication in JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions, many factors uniquely dissuade women from pursuing interventional cardiology (IC) compared with men, largely related to the culture of IC as…