Though they might provide some benefit to high-risk patients in the month after a heart attack, wearable cardioverter-defibrillators don’t significantly lower the rate of arrhythmic death in those who have suffered myocardial infarctions, according to work published in the New England Journal of Medicine Sept. 27.

A Hillsborough County Fire Rescue paramedic has been fired and three others suspended without pay after a 10-week investigation concluded they failed to adequately care for a stroke patient who later died, the Tampa Bay Times reported this week.

A press conference at the 2018 Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics meeting in San Diego on Tuesday, Sept. 25, morphed into a discussion about the future of bioresorbable vascular scaffolds (BVS) and whether it’s worth pursuing bioresorbable stent technology at all.

Targeted plasticity therapy (TPT)—a novel approach to stroke treatment that involves stimulating the vagus nerve to accelerate plasticity in the brain—can double stroke patients’ rates of upper limb recovery, according to research published in Stroke. Paired with traditional motor-skill rehabilitation, it’s twice as effective as standard therapy.

Heart failure (HF) patients who experience moderate functional mitral regurgitation (FMR) for at least six months after cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) are at an increased risk for death, researchers suggest in a study published this week.

Acute coronary syndrome patients who were given a loading dose of atorvastatin before percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) experienced a 28 percent reduction in major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) over the following 30 days, according to a secondary analysis of the randomized SECURE-PCI trial published in JAMA Cardiology.

Cardiologists at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit have successfully performed the country’s first implantation of the Neovasc Reducer—a stainless steel, hourglass-shaped heart mesh designed to alleviate difficult angina—the hospital announced in a statement Sept. 26.

With additional testing for nonobstructive coronary artery disease (CAD), researchers effectively diagnosed microvascular and/or vasospastic angina—as well as non-cardiac related chest pain—and used that information to guide therapy decisions and significantly improve angina and quality-of-life outcomes.

SAN DIEGO, Sept. 25, 2018 — Shimadzu Medical Systems USA and Change Healthcare, have entered a partnership through which Shimadzu will offer Change Healthcare Cardiology™ Hemo, along with its Trinias line of angiography systems. The announcement was made today at the annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT2018) meeting in San Diego.

Twenty-three hospitals from across Arkansas have joined the Arkansas Heart Attack Registry (AHAR), a collaborative effort to reduce the impact of myocardial infarctions in the state, THV 11 reported this week.