Novartis announced that a phase 3 study evaluating the company’s investigational heart failure medication (serelaxin) did not meet its primary endpoint.

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.

Although research has shown automated external defibrillators (AEDs) can increase survival after cardiac arrest, only 17 of 50 U.S. states required at least some of their schools install AEDs as of February 2016, according to a database analysis.

Medicare beneficiaries who received an implantable pulmonary artery pressure (PAP) sensor had a statistically significant 45 percent lower rate of heart failure hospitalizations and reduced costs at six months, according to a retrospective cohort study.

Researchers at Massachusetts’s Worcester Polytechnic Institute have found a way to convert spinach leaves into human heart tissue that can beat, according to a new Chicago Tribune article.

Andrea Baer, director of patient advocacy, discusses how Mended Hearts and Mended Little Hearts provide peer support to heart disease patients, families and caregivers. Participants benefit from receiving advice and feedback from people who have gone through similar experiences. Case studies from Mended Hearts have shown peer-to-peer support helps reduce readmissions and improve adherence to medications and treatment plans.

Cardiovascular providers discuss their biggest challenges, including payers refusing to cover tests, procedures or medications that could benefit patients and providing costly and beneficial therapies and procedures while dealing with cost constraints. There are plenty more, listen in.

Cardiologists J.P. Reilly, MD, and Larry S. Dean, MD, offer insight on the two-year results of the ABSORB III trial that evaluated Abbott’s Absorb bioresorbable vascular scaffold. They also talk about the March 18th FDA advisory letter alerting healthcare professionals of an increase in major adverse cardiac events with the Absorb compared with the Xience drug-eluting stent. As they note, physicians need to be careful about selecting the right patients who may benefit from bioresorbable stents, using them in right-sized vessels and making sure to properly deploy the devices.