A new structural heart disease initiative from the American Heart Association and Edwards Lifesciences will aim to raise patient awareness of valve diseases while enriching patient education and engagement.

Both severe and moderate aortic stenosis, when left untreated, were associated with poor long-term survival in a large-scale study of Australian heart patients.

Edwards Lifesciences announced Nov. 6 that it had received expanded CE mark approval in Europe for the use of its SAPIEN 3 transcatheter heart valve, a tool designed to facilitate TAVI in patients who don’t want to undergo open-heart surgery.

The latest numbers on cardiovascular deaths put the focus on innovative ways to point the trend line down again.

Children’s hospitals across the U.S. are backing a national effort by the Pediatric Congenital Heart Association to improve transparency in the reporting of cardiac surgical outcomes.

An increase in public reporting of aortic valve surgery outcomes has been tied to a decrease in AVR access for patients with infective endocarditis—the unintended consequence of a push for greater transparency in healthcare.

Patients with severe aortic stenosis who undergo TAVR enjoy a minor but significant sustained health benefit that isn’t mirrored in patients who opt for surgical AVR, according to research reported at TCT 2019 in San Francisco.

An economic analysis of COAPT data suggests edge-to-edge TMVR with the MitraClip device is a more affordable long-term treatment option than guideline-directed medical therapy alone for patients with severe secondary MR—but the steep cost of an index TMVR procedure might eclipse that benefit.