Mar 19, 2017
For patients with atrial fibrillation (AFib), a common heart rhythm disorder, closing the area of the heart known as the left atrial appendage as an add-on procedure during cardiac surgery was associated with a 40 percent reduction in the risk ...
Mar 19, 2017
Uninterrupted treatment with dabigatran, a non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulant (NOACs), before, during and after ablation to treat atrial fibrillation significantly reduced the incidence of major bleeding events compared with uninterrup...
Mar 19, 2017
Using genetic testing to help personalize doses of warfarin therapy given to patients undergoing elective orthopedic surgery appears to lower the risk of combined adverse events compared with clinically guided dosing, according to research...
Mar 19, 2017
Patients with atrial fibrillation (AFib) who are given digoxin to control their symptoms have an increased risk of death, whether or not they have a diagnosis of heart failure, compared with patients not taking the drug, and this risk increases...
Mar 19, 2017
Patients with recurrent fainting episodes (syncope) who received a pacemaker delivering a pacing program designed to detect and stop the abnormal heart rhythms that precede syncope had a seven-fold reduction in fainting compared with patients...
Mar 19, 2017
A blood test for a protein called high-sensitivity troponin T, which is released into the bloodstream when injury to the heart occurs, can identify patients with heart damage after non-cardiac surgery whose lives could potentially be saved ...
Mar 19, 2017
About 12 percent of patients undergoing aortic valve replacement developed non-symptomatic blood clots around the valve leaflets (known as subclinical leaflet thrombosis) that reduced the motion of the valves, according to an observational...
Mar 19, 2017
Two FDA-cleared medical devices designed to remove potential vessel-blocking debris particles from the bloodstream during aortic valve replacement, known as Embol-X and CardioGard, did not significantly reduce overall number of brain infarcts...
Mar 19, 2017
Small leakages from blood vessels in the brain, known as microbleeds, increase with age and are associated with cognitive decline. Of 84 older patients undergoing transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), nearly a quarter developed new ...
Mar 19, 2017
When used as a preventive measure during heart surgery, the heart failure drug levosimendan did not significantly reduce rates of death, heart attack, kidney dialysis or use of a mechanical assist device among patients at high risk for low...
Mar 18, 2017
For patients experiencing angina (chest pain) or a heart attack, a new tool called instantaneous wave-free ratio (iFR) was equivalent to the currently-preferred tool, fractional flow reserve (FFR), in terms of incidence of major adverse events...
Mar 18, 2017
Patients receiving the Absorb everolimus-eluting bioresorbable vascular scaffold (BVS), a dissolving stent to open clogged vessels around the heart, showed outcomes comparable with patients receiving the Xience drug-eluting metal stent between ...
Mar 18, 2017
In patients with a complete blockage in the heart’s arteries that persists over time, treatment with medications alone was found to be equal to percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), a procedure to open blocked arteries, in terms of major...
Mar 18, 2017
Patients experiencing a major heart attack often have more than one clogged artery, but under current guidelines doctors typically only clear the blockage responsible for the heart attack. Assessing and, when warranted, treating the additional...
Mar 18, 2017
In patients at elevated risk for a recurrence of potentially life-threatening blood clots, a low dose of the oral blood-thinning medication rivaroxaban reduced recurrences more than three-fold compared with aspirin, with no significant increase...
Mar 18, 2017
There is no evidence that adding a new cholesterol-lowering drug to treatment with a statin causes memory loss or other problems with cognition or thinking, according to findings from the EBBINGHAUS study, the largest, most rigorously designed...
Mar 18, 2017
In the first randomized, double-blinded trial of an online behavioral intervention for high blood pressure, participants in web-based lifestyle counseling reduced their systolic blood pressure (the higher number in a blood-pressure reading) by...
Mar 18, 2017
Injection of a novel form of synthetic high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), or good cholesterol, into the arteries of patients who had recently had a heart attack did not reduce the volume of fatty deposits, or plaque, in the arteries,...
Mar 18, 2017
Patients with acute coronary syndrome who were treated with the blood-thinning drug rivaroxaban in addition to an antiplatelet medication (clopidogrel or ticagrelor) experienced no increase in bleeding complications compared with patients who...
Mar 17, 2017
Two-year data reveal no difference in the combined rate of stroke and death from any cause when comparing the use of self-expanding transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) with standard open-heart surgery in intermediate risk patients with...
Mar 17, 2017
In a clinical program that was terminated early, the experimental PCSK9 inhibitor bococizumab, when given on top of effective statin therapy, had widely varying effects on LDL cholesterol levels and had no benefit on cardiovascular events ...
Mar 17, 2017
Evolocumab, one of the new targeted PCSK9 inhibitor drugs that has been shown to dramatically lower levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or "bad" cholesterol, also significantly lowers the risk of cardiovascular events in patients with...
