Emergency department visits for children with congenital heart disease (CHD) are getting more expensive over time but mortality rates are improving, according to an analysis of more than 420,000 CHD-related trips to the ED over a nine-year period.

Increases in tricuspid regurgitation (TR) severity occurred in 11.5 percent of patients following transvenous lead extraction, according to a single-center study, which also identified lead age as an important predictor of acute TR increases and tricuspid valve injury.

Cardiovascular risk factors have similar effects on the incidence of coronary heart disease (CHD) and ischemic stroke in women, researchers report in the first large-scale study of its kind in female patients.

A patient’s odds of surviving out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) fluctuate an average of 56 percent from one emergency medical services (EMS) agency to another, researchers reported Sept. 26 in JAMA Cardiology.

Assessment of abdominal aortic calcification using computed tomography (CT) is a highly effective predictor of future heart attack and CVD risk, according to research published in Radiology Oct. 2—more effective even than the Framingham risk score, which has been relied upon for more than two decades.

The prices of implantable medical devices to treat heart patients are up to six times higher in the United States than Germany, according to a study published Oct. 1 in Health Affairs.

SAN DIEGO, Oct. 2, 2018 — Arena Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ARNA) today announced positive data from a planned interim analysis of the ongoing open-label extension of the Phase 2 trial of its investigational drug candidate ralinepag, a next-generation, oral, selective and potent prostacyclin receptor agonist in development for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH).

GE Healthcare still plans to separate into an independent company after General Electric named a new chairman and CEO, according to a report by CNBC.

Same-day discharge following elective percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) was safe and resulted in more than $5,000 in savings per procedure, according to an analysis of operations performed from 2006 through 2015. Yet only 9.1 percent of interventions that were studied achieved same-day discharge, representing an opportunity to trim healthcare costs in the United States.

Patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD) and a history of lower extremity revascularization (LER) face an increased risk of both cardiac and limb ischemic events and subsequent revascularization, according to research published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology Oct. 2.