“Today, we’re going to make history,” said 18-year-old Eric Ramos on the day UT Southwestern Medical Center doctors operated on his ailing heart. Eric, who has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, is one of only three patients in the United States with the condition to receive a battery-operated left ventricular assist device (LVAD) to keep his weakening heart pumping blood through his body. He is the first patient in the country to be given a specific, smaller LVAD, which means doctors would not need to manipulate his diaphragm, which could compromise his already limited pulmonary function.

“Today, we’re going to make history,” said 18-year-old Eric Ramos on the day UT Southwestern Medical Center doctors operated on his ailing heart. Eric, who has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, is one of only three patients in the United States with the condition to receive a battery-operated left ventricular assist device (LVAD) to keep his weakening heart pumping blood through his body. He is the first patient in the country to be given a specific, smaller LVAD, which means doctors would not need to manipulate his diaphragm, which could compromise his already limited pulmonary function.

Can treating depression in patients with heart failure help them live longer? That's one of the questions that University of Pittsburgh researchers hope to answer with a new five-year, $7.3 million grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute has set a new standard for U.S. heart transplantation by completing 117 adult heart transplants and two adult heart-lung transplants, for a total of 119 adult heart transplants in a single year. The previous number set in 2005, was 98 adult heart transplants performed in one year.

A team of cardiovascular researchers from Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute (Sanford-Burnham), the Cardiovascular Research Center at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and the University of California, San Diego, have identified a small but powerful new player in the onset and progression of heart failure. Their findings, published in the journal Nature on March 12, also show how they successfully blocked the newly discovered culprit to halt the debilitating and chronic life-threatening condition in its tracks.

Christiana Care Health System is one of 15 hospitals selected out of 132 eligible hospitals nationwide by the American College of Cardiology to participate in a new program designed to keep patients healthy at home after discharge from the hospital.

BioControl Medical, a medical device company headquartered in Yehud, Israel, has received approval from the Israel Ministry of Health to conduct clinical trial of its CardioFit(r) system in patients with chronic heart failure (HF) as part of INOVATE-HF. With the approval, Israel will join European countries and the United States to participate in the company's third phase of INOVATE-HF (INcrease Of VAgal TonE in Heart Failure), a U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved investigational device exemption (IDE) study of CardioFit being conducted in 80 centers worldwide.

Texas Children's Hospital is proud to be named the first Accredited Pediatric Heart Failure Institute in Texas by The Healthcare Accreditation Colloquium.