Valentine’s Day promotion starts in December. The push for heart care should be never ending.

Paramedics may effectively be the first line of treatment in patients with stroke and also can be partners in bringing research into a prehospital setting. This finding in the Feb. 5 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine tempers the result that the treatment used, magnesium sulfate, did not improve outcomes over placebo.

In an international, real-world setting, two-thirds of late transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) cardiac deaths could be traced back to advanced heart failure and sudden cardiac death. Researchers found, however, some factors that led to increased risks in these patients were modifiable. 

Using a narrowing device in the coronary sinus may provide relief of symptoms and improve angina by at least one class, according to a study published Feb. 5 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Good data are key to understanding new processes and improving care. This was underscored by a paper published in the February issue of Health Affairs, which promoted the Transcatheter Valve Therapy Registry as a model for collaboration and harmonized patient data collection.

Patients with acute decompensated heart failure may benefit more from care by a cardiologist than a non-cardiologist, according to a study published in the February issue of the American Journal of Cardiology.

Daily pill taking is worth years of cardiovascular health to patients, according to a study published Feb. 3 in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. The study looked at the utility of taking cardiovascular prevention medicine by asking patients how much shorter they were willing to live, how much more they were willing to pay and what risk of death they were willing to have to avoid taking medications.

Early care with intravenous (IV) fluid is not recommended by guidelines for patients with acute decompensated heart failure. However, 11 percent of patients in a study published Feb. 1 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Heart Failure received IV fluid and diuretics in the first two days of hospitalization.