The FDA announced Feb. 6 it has approved Cablivi for the treatment of adults with acquired thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (aTTP), a rare blood-clotting disorder.

Hospitals participating in the second phase of a quality improvement program through the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association reduced their median door-to-needle times for acute ischemic stroke patients from 66 minutes to 51 minutes. And the program is now setting its goals even higher. 

A new study of young heart attack sufferers revealed a sobering, albeit unsurprising, finding: More than 90 percent had at least one modifiable risk factor. What’s equally concerning, according to the authors, is the prevalence of most of these risk factors increased over the decade-long study.

Although octogenarians undergoing transcatheter or surgical aortic valve replacement (TAVR or SAVR) experienced similar rates of in-hospital mortality and vascular complications, a recent analysis from the National Inpatient Sample concluded patients who received the less-invasive procedure had shorter hospital stays and fared better for a range of other outcomes.

Optimizing hemodynamics for heart failure (HF) patients with continuous-flow left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) significantly reduces the rate of those patients’ hospital readmissions, according to a study published Feb. 1 in Circulation: Heart Failure.

ProvideGx, a subsidiary of Premier, will begin its offerings with metoprolol, a beta-blocker that can treat blood pressure and angina and is commonly given to heart attack patients.

Biologic treatment favorably modifies coronary plaque characteristics for patients with severe psoriasis, suggests a study published Feb. 5 in Cardiovascular Research. The findings raise the possibility that the anti-inflammatory drugs can both treat psoriasis and reduce cardiovascular risk.

The lifetime cumulative risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD) is much higher in black patients than in whites, according to an analysis of the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study published in Circulation Feb. 4.