While accident victims in the U.S. are uniformly taken directly to the most advanced trauma center nearby, the protocols for where to shuttle stroke patients vary widely by state, according to a recent article by Stateline.

A mesh envelope embedded with antibiotics cut the risk of major device-related infections by 40 percent when placed around cardiac implantable electronic devices (CIEDs) like pacemakers and defibrillators, researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.

A woman who was on the hook for nearly $227,000 in medical bills after suffering a heart attack and other complications had her balance wiped out by a medical charity waiver, Kaiser Health News reported. But that didn’t save Debbie Moehnke and her husband, Larry, the stress of mounting medical bills and calls from debt collectors, and the story highlights how inconsistent billing practices could impact other patients.

The FDA has approved the Optimizer Smart system as an implantable treatment option for heart failure patients with left ventricular ejection fraction between 25 and 45 percent who aren’t candidates for cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT).

In the largest-ever randomized trial of antihypertensive drug treatment in sub-Saharan Africa, two medication combinations including the long-acting calcium channel blocker amlodipine outperformed a third two-drug combination featuring a diuretic and an angiotensin-converting-enzyme (ACE) inhibitor.

Hypertensive patients from the RADIANCE-HTN SOLO trial who received renal denervation sustained a lower blood pressure through six months compared to participants randomized to a sham procedure, despite being placed on fewer antihypertensive medications during follow-up.

Researchers from the Rochester Institute of Technology are leveraging “natural processes” to provide insights into heart health with a toilet seat-based cardiovascular monitoring system.

A post-FDA approval study of Abbott’s CardioMEMS heart failure sensor found the device reduced HF-related hospitalizations by 58 percent in a trial group of 1,200 patients, researchers reported at this year’s American College of Cardiology symposium in New Orleans.

A catheter ablation protocol for atrial fibrillation (AFib) including only “the bare essentials” of the procedure delivered similar outcomes as a more involved strategy featuring pulmonary vein mapping, according to research presented at EHRA 2019.

Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS)-guided PCI was associated with lower long-term risk of cardiac death than an angiography-guided approach in patients with complex lesions, according to a single-center study published in JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions.