Scientists at the University of Oxford are pitching cardiologists a new model for heart regeneration research: the Mexican tetra fish, a blind, translucent animal with an innate ability to repair its damaged heart tissue.

Patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), who face a high mortality risk and do not respond to conventional therapies, are changing the way clinicians think about heart failure.

The idea of “rapid and complete recovery” in Takotsubo patients is a myth, according to research published in the Nov. 7 edition of the European Heart Journal—and it’s one physicians should be paying more attention to.

Among patients with restored ventricular function who were taken off their heart failure medications, 44 percent relapsed within eight weeks. Researchers said the trial indicates most of these patients should remain on their treatments indefinitely.

Sacubitril-valsartan therapy was associated with greater reductions in N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) than enalapril among patients hospitalized with acute decompensated heart failure, according to research presented Nov. 11 at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions and published online simultaneously in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Poor health literacy could mean an increased risk of death for patients hospitalized with acute decompensated heart failure (ADHF), according to a study published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings Nov. 7.

Inhibiting a certain class of cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) proteins could protect cancer patients from chemotherapy-induced heart failure—the second leading cause of death in the demographic after cancer recurrence—according to research published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Researchers have discovered a novel biomarker in stable, ambulatory patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), a finding which may lead to earlier diagnoses of HFpEF.