Amgen and Servier today announced a new collaboration agreement leveraging each company's commitment to cardiovascular disease.

A research team at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine has partnered with Acorda Therapeutics to evaluate the safety and efficacy of a new biological product that has the potential to treat patients with even severe, progressive heart failure.

Results from a randomized clinical trial comparing catheter ablation with rate control in patients with heart failure and persistent atrial fibrillation (AF) found peak oxygen consumption increased significantly in the ablation group.

The FDA instructed physicians to limit the use of tolvaptan, a drug sometimes prescribed to heart failure patients, to no more than 30 days due to possible liver damage that could lead to organ transplantation or death.

The Heart Failure Congress 2013 promises more science than ever this year, with a record number of abstracts submitted. The congress takes place 25-28 May at the Centro de Congressos de Lisboa in Lisbon, Portugal.

Patients with atrioventricular block and mild to moderate heart failure who were randomized in the BLOCK HF trial to biventricular pacing as a whole had better outcomes than counterparts who received conventional right ventricular pacing.

Messy. That is how a bioengineer once described the environment within the human body to me. Many implantable medical devices are an achievement in ingenuity that overcomes “messiness” like biocompatibility, blood and torsion. But few are indestructible or 100 percent fail-safe.

Anne M. Gillis, MD, president of the Heart Rhythm Society 
and a professor at the University of Calgary, discussed highlights of Heart Rhythm 2013 that starts May 8 in Denver and how the scientific sessions continue to evolve.