New research on a heart pump designed to treat cardiogenic shock patients receiving a percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) suggests that early placement of the device can boost survival rates.

RARITAN, N.J., June 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Janssen Research & Development, LLC announced today the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accepted for Priority Review a supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) for XARELTO® (rivaroxaban) to include a 10 mg once-daily dose for reducing the risk of VTE after at least six months of standard anticoagulant therapy. This application is based on data from EINSTEIN CHOICE, which is the only study to find a non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulant (NOAC), specifically two doses of XARELTO® (10 mg and 20 mg), to be superior to aspirin in reducing the risk of recurrent VTE, with comparable rates of major bleeding.

WHIPPANY, N.J., June 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Bayer has enrolled the first patient in a global Phase IV study assessing the clinical effects of riociguat in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), who were being treated with a Phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors(PDE-5 inhibitors), either as monotherapy or in combination with an endothelin receptor antagonist (ERA), and who did not reach their therapeutic goal. The study, which is a part of the collaboration between Bayer and Merck, is seeking to enroll patients at 26 sites in the U.S. with a total of 100 study sites worldwide.

With a few practical steps, cardiology practices can meet the palliative care needs of heart failure patients.

New research may show why some heart failure patients don’t respond to beta-blocker drugs—with the cause lying in the dysfunction of beta-adrenergic receptor 3 (β3AR) and resulting decreases in cardioprotective phospholipid.

Did the patent foramen ovale (PFO) cause the patient’s stroke? This, experts say, is the key question when deciding whether to recommend PFO closure. Heart–brain teams can help with the answer.   

Why has the uptake of adjunctive diagnostic procedures like FFR, IVUS and OCT been slow? On the other hand, is there really a need for interventionalists to move beyond angiographic guidance?

Though the rate of heart failure hospitalizations has decreased over the last few years in the U.S., black Americans are still admitted at a higher rate than other ethnic and racial groups, according to a new study from the University of California, Los Angeles.