Cardiolgists in Florida believe the state is putting children with heart defects at risk after changing a policy following Tenet Healthcare’s $200,000 contribution to Republicans in the state, CNN reports. 

With more cancer patients being exposed to radiation and chemotherapy and potential cardiovascular complications, the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) released an expert consensus statement on the cardiac catheterization of cancer patients.

A few years ago at a conference for heart disease survivors, two well-known cardiologists fielded questions about stroke.

Months after the U.S. FDA approved a device with the potential to close the source of many atrial fibrillation-related strokes, hospitals, cardiologists and patients find themselves in a holding pattern increasingly common for newly emerging therapies: They are waiting for the CMS to issue a national coverage determination for LAA occlusion.

One morning last year, a patient checked into a hospital in Canada as the first TAVR case of the day, and they were discharge by that evening. It was an eyebrow-raising feat for a procedure that typically requires several days of hospitalization.

“Time is brain,” physicians say. As they ponder new data on acute stroke intervention with stent retrievers, many are advocating for new systems and a team-based approach modeled after the successful door-to-balloon time protocols that have vastly improved heart attack outcomes.

Making the change to structured reporting in the cath lab is not easy, simple, fast or fun. But it can be done, according to interventional cardiologists who have taken the challenge and succeeded.

The FDA recalled the catheter included in the Fuhrman Pleural/Pneumopericardial Drainage Set, which is used to remove air from the pericardium surrounding the heart or drain fluid from the pleural cavity that protects the lungs.