The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a new study that will test the efficacy of a stem cell technique used on children suffering from congenital heart disease.

A registry analysis found there was significant variability in risk-standardized mortality rates among PCI operators who met minimum volume standards. The rates were not consistent on a yearly basis.

Surgeons at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) performed heart surgery on a fetus still inside the womb, successfully removing a tumor damaging the heart, reports CBS Philly.

Merit Medical Systems recalled its Merit 7F Prelude short sheath introducer, which is used to guide the placement of catheters, grafts and other medical devices into the veins and arteries. It is also used during temporary hemodialysis.

Heart doctors from all over the country are traveling to the Vein Center of Southwest Louisiana to learn how to perform a specialized vein procedure from staff cardiologist Carl Fastabend, MD, reports an NBC affiliate in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Medtronic plc (NYSE: MDT) today announced first enrollments in the STOP Persistent AF clinical trial. The trial will evaluate the safety and effectiveness of a pulmonary vein isolation-only (PVI) strategy for treating patients with persistent atrial fibrillation (AF), using the Arctic Front Advance(TM) Cardiac CryoAblation Catheter. John Harding, M.D., Doylestown Hospital in Doylestown, Penn., treated the first patient enrolled in the trial.

Just last week, Maryland approved a project by Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis to build a new cardiac surgery program, a move that will help better serve patients in the area, reports the Baltimore Business Journal.

Cardiovascular surgeon Joseph Lamelas, MD, left his practice of more than 20 years in Miami for Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center in Houston in January.