Regenerative medicine experts at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute have opened a new clinic to evaluate heart and vascular disease patients for participation in stem cell medical studies.

Physicians monitoring heart transplant patients rely on frequent endomyocardial biopsies to detect nonsymptomatic rejection. But for how long? One year may be sufficient, a cost-effectiveness analysis concluded. 

Muscle physiologist Edward Debold at the University of Massachusetts Amherst's School of Public Health and Health Sciences recently received a three-year, $198,000 grant from the American Heart Association to support studies to uncover the molecular mechanisms of skeletal muscle fatigue.

The FDA approved a quadripolar lead and two cardiac resynchronization therapy-defibrillator (CRT-D) devices for treatment in patients with heart failure.

St. Jude Medical, Inc., a global medical device company, today announced that the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has approved a New Technology Add-on Payment (NTAP) for the CardioMEMS HF System. The CardioMEMS HF System is the first and only U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved heart failure (HF) monitoring device that has been proven to significantly reduce hospital admissions when used by physicians to manage heart failure. The NTAP program, which recognizes new technologies that provide substantial clinical improvement over already available therapies, is designed to support timely access to innovative technologies for Medicare beneficiaries.

Neighborhood effects may have an influence on readmissions in patients with heart failure. Whether or not patients themselves have a higher socioeconomic status, where they live may play a role in their post-release outcomes, according to a study published online July 29 in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality & Outcomes.

Cardioxyl Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced today the positive results of a clinical trial demonstrating that CXL-1427, a novel potential treatment for acute decompensated heart failure (ADHF), was well tolerated in healthy volunteers. The company has now initiated dosing of hospitalized patients with decompensated heart failure in a Phase IIa clinical trial designed to further evaluate the drug’s safety and tolerability as well as its dosing levels.

BIOTRONIK, a leading manufacturer of cardiovascular medical technology, announced the first implantations worldwide of its new ICD and CRT-D series (implantable cardioverter-defibrillators and cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillators). With Sentus quadripolar leads and the Inventra series, BIOTRONIK offers the only devices for patients with heart failure worldwide that are approved for MRI use. The quadripolar Sentus lead eases the implantation process by giving physicians access to challenging vessels. With CE approval in early July, BIOTRONIK's new implantable defibrillator series includes the industry’s first quadripolar left-ventricular leads to be approved for MRI use.