Low-calorie “crash” diets actually cause a heart to become fatter in the short term, impairing its function, researchers reported at CMR 2018.

Seven new commercial payers are covering the use of the HeartFlow FFRct Analysis, a noninvasive technology that allows clinicians to view a simulated, three-dimensional model of a patient’s coronary blood flow. More than 185 million patients will now have access to HeartFlow, the company announced Feb. 1.

Using multimodality imaging to assess Fluorine-18-sodium fluoride (18F-NaF) activity could help clinicians better predict whether abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) are likely to grow more rapidly and eventually rupture, researchers reported in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

DUBLIN and LEIPZIG — January 30, 2018 — Medtronic plc (NYSE: MDT) today added to its robust body of clinical evidence supporting the IN.PACT(TM) Admiral(TM) drug-coated balloon (DCB) with new presentations that demonstrated durable and consistent clinical outcomes in peripheral artery disease (PAD).

The American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) announced Jan. 29 its ImageGuideEcho registry is open to U.S. physicians. ImageGuideEcho is the first registry exclusively devoted to measuring quality in cardiovascular ultrasounds.

A new study using whole-body molecular imaging identified a shared inflammatory response between the cardiovascular and central nervous systems following myocardial infarction (MI), possibly adding insight to the reported connection between cardiac injury and cognitive decline.

Cardiologists are receiving more exposure to different imaging modalities during their fellowships, but their job prospects and training vary widely. A more comprehensive and multimodality training approach could lead to better results.  

American patients consume nearly half of the world’s supply of Molybdenum-99 (moly-99), a radioisotope that is crucial to most nuclear medicine imaging procedures. Yet there are only six government-owned nuclear research reactors that produce moly-99 and none in North America, prompting concerns about the supply chain of a product that has a shelf life of only a few days due to rapid decay.