Heart Failure

A 75 year-old man with a history of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation and a single-chamber pacemaker placed for bradycardia 5 years prior presents with dizziness and nausea to clinic. He notes that he has also been feeling short of breath with normal activities of daily living.

The Journal of the American College of Cardiology named its biggest hits in 2014, based on papers most frequently accessed from its site. A blood test to rule out heart attack, an advisory about guidelines for preventing high blood pressure, cutting edge research on a new class of cholesterol drugs, and a study that found benefits in early surgery for mitral regurgitation were among the winners.

It's been a good year for heart disease and stroke research. An expert panel chosen by the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association recently named 2014's most significant research news events.

Research shows that a follow-up strategy designed specifically for patients who visit the hospital with atrial fibrillation reduces future admissions and patient deaths more than a general follow-up plan.

New research contradicts earlier findings that race is a risk factor for atrial fibrillation but finds that excess body fat may be riskier than anyone realized if that fat is stored around the heart.

Amid the ongoing debate about whether patients are getting the best end-of-life care, a University of Pennsylvania team today presented survey results on a potential ethics question: How would patients feel if doctors turned off their defibrillators against the wishes of patient or family?

Heart failure is highly debilitating and life threatening – nearly half the patients who die from cardiovascular causes do so suddenly when their heart simply stops pumping, well before medical intervention is even possible.

With heart failure increasing in prevalence as the US population ages, early detection and more effective treatments are important. Now, data from clinical studies show that treatment with the experimental angiotensin receptor neprilysin inhibitor LCZ696 can significantly reduce patients' risk of sudden death and hospitalization.

Former VP Dick Cheney spoke at AHA 2014 about his experiences as a model heart patient. Speaking with his cardiologist, Jonathan Reiner, MD, of George Washington University, Cheney recounted his 5 heart attacks, a CABG procedure, defibrillator implantation, getting a left-ventricular assistive device, and at age 71, a heart from an anonymous donor.

Could hospitals be a bad place to have heart attacks? That's the finding of a North Carolina research team that looked at data from 303 California hospitals. Patients who had heart attacks while hospitalized for a non-cardiac ailment had a more than 3-fold greater in-hospital mortality than patients taken to a hospital.

Dual antiplatelet blood-thinning therapy (DAPT) immediately after stenting with a drug-eluting device has been shown to prevent major cardiac events and stent thrombosis in most patients. Current American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association guidelines recommend 12 months of therapy post-stenting. But out of concern over potential risks of continuing the drugs longer, or even indefinitely, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) asked device manufacturers to study the longer-term consequences of the therapy.

Heart failure and other cardiac events can leave lasting effects on the lives of patients. Scientists are working on ways to help make the recovery process easier and smoother by generating cells that can help the healing process.

It is well known that patients who get primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) after an ST segment elevation myocardial infarction usually survive. But a new study from Denmark looked at a large population of such patients over several years to track just how many deaths there were each year and from what cause.

A collaborative effort from researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and University of Florida has yielded plant leaves as a viable treatment for pulmonary hypertension.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a new angioplasty balloon catheter for the treatment of vascular disease. The Lutonix 035 Drug Coated Balloon Percutaneous Transluminal Angioplasty Catheter is the first drug-coated balloon approved for use to re-open arteries in the thigh and knee when those arteries are narrowed as a result of peripheral artery disease, the agency said.