His-optimized cardiac resynchronization therapy successfully narrowed QRS duration, improved left ventricular (LV) ejection fraction and heightened functionality in 27 patients with advanced heart failure (HF), according to a study published in Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology.

“Rather than bringing in many additional statin candidates, this testing should serve as a decision aid to ‘de-risk’ certain patients and distinguish those who may benefit from preventive pharmacologic therapies," Johns Hopkins researchers wrote in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Andexanet alfa (Andexxa), the only FDA-approved reversal agent for factor Xa inhibitors, was successful in mitigating bleeding events associated with that class of anticoagulants, researchers reported Feb. 7 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

A Danish study of 400 patients with infective endocarditis has concluded oral delivery of antibiotics to treat the disease yields similar safety and efficiency as administering the drugs intravenously.

Increasing physicians’ bonus sizes was linked to significantly improved quality of care for their patients, according to a study from a single health system published Feb. 8 in JAMA Network Open. However, adding the behavioral economic principles of social pressure and loss aversion failed to further improve providers’ effectiveness.

Nearly a quarter of adults living with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) are prescribed at least one pharmaceutical that could exacerbate their condition, according to a study published in the American Journal of Cardiology Feb. 10.

Research gathered as part of Irish Life Health’s annual fitness challenge has revealed the cardiovascular health of some local 15-year-olds is comparable to that of 55- or 60-year-olds—something experts are attributing to low levels of physical activity among the country’s youth.

An internal review by Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital uncovered 13 cases in which heart surgery patients were harmed by medical care from 2015 to 2018 but that went unreported until recently. Florida law requires such incidents to be reported within 15 days, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

Tennessee Interventional Imaging Associates (TIAA) reached an agreement with Chattanooga, Tennessee-based Erlanger Health System to remain its radiology service provider, according to the Times Free Press. The parties had previously been in a contract dispute that threatened the hospital’s premier stroke program.

An elevated heart rate upon hospital admission has been repeatedly linked to an increased risk of mortality for acute MI patients (AMI), making admission heart rate a key component of risk-stratification equations. But researchers recently found a patient’s heart rate at discharge was an even more powerful predictor of death over three years of follow-up.