Catheter ablation was associated with better arrhythmia-free survival and lower complication rates than surgical ablation in patients with paroxysmal or early-onset persistent atrial fibrillation (AFib), according to a small, randomized study published in Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology.

A team at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, announced progress on its latest cardiology wearable: a plant-based, stretchable wrist sticker that has the ability to monitor physical activity and alert users to health risks in real-time.

Harvard Medical School scientists have created a wirelessly programmed, miniaturized pacemaker which functions for weeks to months at a time, opening the door to “previously impossible investigations of arrhythmia and heart failure in the mouse.”

Preliminary results from the RETAKO trial, a study of takotsubo syndrome (TTS) in the Spanish population, have identified cardiogenic shock as an independent, strong predictor of mortality and complexities in TTS patients—a demographic that’s already at considerable risk for complications.

Direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) can cut the short-term risk of thromboembolic events in half for patients who have undergone cardioversion of atrial fibrillation (AFib), suggests a meta-analysis published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

When cardiologists get involved in the treatment of patients with a history of cancer and newly diagnosed atrial fibrillation (AFib), those people see a subsequent 11 percent reduction in the risk of stroke, according to a new study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. But those visits occur less often for that subgroup of patients than in AFib patients without cancer.

Digoxin, a cardiac glycoside popularly sold under the brand name Lanoxin, poses a major threat to the heart health of atrial fibrillation (AF) and heart failure (HF) patients, according to a review published in the American Journal of Cardiology Oct. 4. Even without confounding conditions, the drug can raise an individual’s risk of all-cause mortality.

“The people most in need of it, those who might benefit from tests and distance monitoring, are the least likely to get (the Apple Watch),” Aaron E. Carroll, MD, wrote in the New York Times. “If we truly believed this was a medical test beneficial to the general population, insurance should pay for it."