Improvements in door-to-balloon times have helped to push down mortality rates and boost outcomes for MI patients, the New York Times reports in part of a series on cardiovascular care in the U.S. The article includes educational slides on heart attacks and PCI treatment.

Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) landed Page One coverage in the print edition of the New York Times on June 22 with a feature that covered its history, from testing in pigs and sheep to being a treatment for prominent figures such as Henry Kissinger.

Although most people are aware of heart failure, they often do not understand the signs and symptoms of the disease, according to an American Heart Association poll released on June 15.

An antidote for one commercially available novel oral anticoagulant (NOAC) proved safe and effective in an interim analysis of a nonrandomized study, researchers reported online June 22 in the New England Journal of Medicine. Don’t pop the cork on the champagne just yet, though.

Medtronic acquired CardioInsight Technologies in a debt-free deal announced on June 19 that increases Medtronic’s focus on atrial fibrillation and other arrhythmias. The deal was valued at approximately $93 million.

A stent may not be a commodity in the same sense as silicon dioxide or carbon black. But what hospitals perceive as slight, if any, clinical differences among drug-eluting stents can make them appear so in purchasing decisions.

Patients using cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) devices equipped with an algorithm were significantly less likely to be readmitted to hospitals within 30 days following discharge for heart failure and all other causes. 

The FDA approved the third-generation transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) device by Edwards Lifesciences, giving the company permission to market the Sapien 3 system as a treatment for high-risk patients with severe aortic stenosis.