Once the artery has been opened with PCI, the treatment involves mixing a patient’s own blood with oxygenated saline and then infusing that superoxygenated mixture to the targeted ischemic area for 60 minutes.

Colorado became the second state to pass legislation requiring surgical smoke evacuation systems at hospitals and ambulatory surgical centers on March 28, when Gov. Jared Polis signed the bill into law. Rhode Island passed a similar law in June 2018.

An animal study published in Experimental Neurology suggests recovery from cardiac arrest is inhibited by exposure to white light—the same kind that normally illuminates hospital rooms.

A meta-analysis of sham-controlled renal denervation trials published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found the catheter-based procedure was associated with statistically significant drops in ambulatory and office blood pressure measurements among hypertensive patients.

Compared to warfarin, all direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) were associated with fewer cardiovascular events including heart attacks and strokes in a study of Medicare patients with both nonvalvular atrial fibrillation and heart failure. But apixaban appeared to offer the best balance of protecting against these events while minimizing bleeding risk.

Two papers published March 25 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology make the case for training other interventionalists, including cardiologists, in performing mechanical thrombectomy to increase access to the emergency stroke treatment.

The promise of artificial intelligence to revolutionize healthcare is the topic of increasing research, with new publications every day devoted to the topic. One of these applications, according to an April 1 article in The Wall Street Journal, is using AI to listen to a person’s voice and detect a range of mental and physical ailments, including coronary artery disease (CAD).

In the latest study to link influenza and cardiovascular disease, researchers found that the most severe flu seasons coincided with spikes in hospitalizations for heart failure.