The Healthcare Accreditation Colloquium announced today that Mayo Clinic Children's Center became the first Accredited Pediatric Heart Failure Institute in Minnesota and fourth in the nation after successfully completing a rigorous one year effort focused on the diagnosis and treatment of childhood heart failure within the community, hospital, clinician education and science.

More than 14 million Europeans suffer from heart failure, roughly half of which is caused by diastolic heart failure, known by doctors as HFPEF. OptimEx, a new 3.5-year study funded by the European Union and coordinated by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), will look at whether exercise could be used both to prevent and treat HFPEF. 

UC Davis Health System researchers have identified for the first time a biological pathway that is activated when blood sugar levels are abnormally high and causes irregular heartbeats, a condition known as cardiac arrhythmia that is linked with heart failure and sudden cardiac death.

In a study comparing the management and prognosis of bleeding related to warfarin and dabigatran, managing bleeding was not any more difficult and the prognosis was not any worse with warfarin. While patients who experienced major bleeding while using dabigatran required more transfusions, they also had a shorter hospital stay and tended to have lower mortality than patients on warfarin. The results were published in the Oct. 1 issue of Circulation.

Abiomed, Inc. (Nasdaq:ABMD), a leading provider of breakthrough heart support technologies, today reported its donation of an unrestricted grant in the amount of $375,000 to Boston Children's Hospital Heart Center, a newly dedicated cardiovascular care center founded within Boston Children's Hospital.

New research reveals the advantages of new, more accurate risk assessment methodologies over the basic lipid panel. Atherotech Diagnostics Lab, a leading clinical reference laboratory specializing in advanced cardiometabolic testing and disease management solutions, will highlight recent evidence for improved cardiovascular disease assessment and prevention at the eighth annual Cardiometabolic Health Congress (CMHC) October 2-5, at the Sheraton Hotel in Boston.    

Based on what they describe as a review of several studies and interviews with 37 cardiologists, 33 patients or their survivors, three Bloomberg reporters explored overuse of stenting, particularly in elective procedures. The report covers several investigations and describes cases that culminated in patient deaths. It also includes a map of “coronary stent hot spots.”

Statins may offer a dementia prevention advantage in people with no history of cognitive dysfunction. In a meta-analysis published in the October issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, researchers found that short-term data suggest statins do not adversely affect cognition and long-term data suggest some preventive benefit.