Longtime claims that heart patients fitted with implantable cardiac devices should forgo MRI testing for safety concerns could be incorrect and “outdated,” according to new research published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Abbott (NYSE: ABT) today announced U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for magnetic resonance (MR)-conditional labeling for the Quadra Assura MPTM Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy Defibrillator (CRT-D) and Fortify AssuraTM Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD), two of the company's most widely-used high voltage medical devices.

Some startling news came out of Anaheim, California, on Nov. 13: John Warner, MD, the president of the American Heart Association (AHA), had suffered a heart attack at the AHA’s annual Scientific Sessions.

When writing about a recent JAMA Cardiology study, I was struck by an image of former Loyola Marymount University basketball star Hank Gathers swinging from the rim after a powerful dunk—and then collapsing to the court seconds later. Gathers died at 23.

New technology developed at New York’s Binghamton University could change the way clinicians detect heart disease with MRI scans, research published in the journal Colloid and Surfaces B: Biointerfaces suggests.

A novel radiation ablation technique almost completely wiped out ventricular tachycardia in five patients who experienced thousands of episodes in the months leading up to the treatment, according to research published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Patients with atrial fibrillation (AFib) who are admitted to rural hospitals have a 17 percent increased risk of death during their stay compared to those admitted to urban facilities, researchers reported in HeartRhythm.

Recent research provided sobering news on Americans’ ability to respond to cardiac arrest, which has about a 10 percent survival rate when occurring outside the hospital, according to the American Heart Association (AHA).