Boston Scientific chairman Pete M. Nicholas will retire at the company’s annual meeting in May, the company announced on Feb. 25. CEO and President Michael F. Mahoney will become chairman when Nicholas retires.

The Senate confirmed Robert M. Califf, MD, as FDA commissioner on Feb. 24, placing the cardiologist atop the agency in the final year of President Barack Obama’s second term.

In recent years, death rates associated with in-hospital development of cardiogenic shock have declined among patients hospitalized with acute MI, according to a population-based observational study conducted at 11 medical centers in central Massachusetts.

The FDA declined to expand the indications of ezetimibe (Zetia) and ezetimibe plus simvastatin (Vytorin) to reduce the risk of cardiovascular events in patients with coronary heart disease, according to a Merck news release.

The American College of Cardiology (ACC) and American Heart Association (AHA) were mostly in agreement with initial core quality measure sets released on Feb. 16 by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and America’s Health Insurance Plans. However, the ACC and AHA noted they “strongly disagree” with two conflicting measure sets for blood pressure control.

A cross-sectional, population-based study found that 16.8 million U.S. adults may benefit from lowering their systolic blood pressure goal to less than 120 mm Hg based on them meeting eligibility criteria for the SPRINT (Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial) study.

The Senate plans on holding a procedural vote on Feb. 22 on the nomination of veteran cardiologist Robert Califf, MD, to become FDA commissioner, Politico reports. 

The Leapfrog Group’s hospital surveys and safety scores, the Joint Commission’s quality check and Truven’s hospital scorecards are among the free, online hospital-rating systems summarized and linked for quick consumer consumption by The Sentinel newspaper of Carlisle, Pa.