Today, the electrophysiology service of the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Heart, Vascular and Stroke Care announces participation in a new Transatlantic Network of Excellence as part of a $6 million award from the Leducq Foundation.

A small plane crash outside Chicago claimed the lives of three physicians Oct. 12, including a cardiologist from Kansas.

Left ventricular assist device (LVAD) decision-making tools for heart failure patients are inadequate, according to research published online Oct. 14 in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. Few reviewed materials mentioned risks, although all discussed benefits.

Where a patient lives, his or her race, discharge blood values and previous hospitalization record were among variables that most predicted 30-day heart failure readmission risk, a Boston research group found. The model they developed, simplified from a list of 25 variables, had high accuracy compared with commonly used standards.

In the battle between endarterectomy and carotid artery stenting, the patient emerged as the ultimate victor in a study published online Oct. 14 in The Lancet. Both approaches proved to be equally effective at preventing severe stroke at 10 years, giving physicians a green light to choose the treatment that best fits the individual patient.

At the heart of things, men and women do react differently to stress. According to a study published in the Oct. 21 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the physical impact of mental and emotional stress on the heart and its function differs between men and women.

Atherosclerotic patients in a real-world setting did better when carotid endarterectomy (CEA) was used as opposed to carotid angioplasty and stenting (CAS). Contradictory to some earlier prospective studies, at no point did researchers find equipoise between the two procedures. 

Efforts to bring low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels within guideline parameters fall short with stroke. Only one in five patients at high risk for recurrent stroke met recommendations for LDL cholesterol levels below 70 mg/dL, according to results published online Oct. 9 in Stroke.