May 15th, 2021 - An expert panel convened by The Lancet calls for urgent action to reduce the global burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in women and has outlined an ambitious agenda to accomplish that goal. The report, from the all-female-led Lancet Women and Cardiovascular Disease Commission, was presented May 16 during a plenary session at the American College of Cardiology (ACC) 2021 Scientific Session a...

May 15th, 2021 - For patients with ST-elevated myocardial infarction (STEMI) undergoing complete revascularization, percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) guided by fractional flow reserve (FFR) relative to angiography-guided PCI do not result in significantly lower risk of death or events, according to data from the randomized FLOWER-MI trial. Rather, the events at 1 year were numerically lower among those ...

May 15th, 2021 - Renal denervation's comeback as a potential treatment for patients with drug-resistant hypertension rolls on. Renal denervation with ultrasound energy produced a significant, median 4.5–mm Hg incremental drop in daytime, ambulatory, systolic blood pressure, compared with sham-treatment after 2 months follow-up in a randomized study of 136 patients with drug-resistant hypertension maintained on ...

May 15th, 2021 - Questions over the cardiovascular benefits shown in the REDUCE-IT trial with icosapent ethyl, a high-dose eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) product, have been reignited with a new analysis from the STRENGTH trial showing no benefit of a high-dose combined omega-3 fatty acid product in patients who achieved the highest EPA levels and no harm in those with the highest levels of docosahexaenoic acid (DH...

May 15th, 2021 - Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center. "Vaccines have been the bright light of this extraordinary challenge that we've gone through," said Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Epidemiology The pandemic began in December 2019 with recognition of a novel type of pneumonia in the Wuha...

May 15th, 2021 - The investigational transfemoral EVOQUE tricuspid valve replacement system (Edwards Lifesciences) significantly reduced severity of tricuspid regurgitation and improved quality of life at 30 days in the TRISCEND single-arm early feasibility study (EFS). The device deployed as intended, with no clinically significant paravalvular leak and good safety outcomes, and patients had significant improv...

May 15th, 2021 - After a modest early signal of benefit, candesartan cilexetil (Atacand, Cheplapharm) showed no effect on key markers of heart health 2 years after treatment in patients with early-stage breast cancer in the randomized PRADA trial. The 2015 study was hailed at the time as the largest randomized trial in breast cancer to look at the effects of angiotensin-receptor blockade with candesartan and th...

May 15th, 2021 - Significant improvement in the control of symptoms related to paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia (PSVT) is resurrecting etripamil as a self-administered nasal spray a year after it failed to meet the primary endpoint in a phase 3 trial, according to a new analysis from this same study presented at the annual scientific sessions of the American College of Cardiology. In the phase 3 NODE-301...

May 15th, 2021 - A novel physical rehabilitation program for patients with advanced heart failure (HF) that aimed to improve their ability to exercise before focusing on endurance was successful in a randomized trial in ways that seem to have eluded some earlier exercise-training studies in the setting of HF. The often frail patients following the training regimen, initiated before discharge from hospitalizatio...

May 14th, 2021 - The use of e-cigarettes is linked to a higher frequency of self-reported wheezing and shortness of breath in adolescents and young adults, according to an online survey. The association was present even after controlling for cigarette and cannabis use. Previous studies of adolescents and young adults have shown associations between e-cigarette use and wheeze, shortness of breath, and asthma. Th...

May 14th, 2021 - Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center. Patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD) who had worse composite scores for six social determinants of health — economic stability, neighborhood quality, education, 30-day food security, community integration, and health insurance — were less likely to adhere to all the measures recommended to...

May 14th, 2021 - In the Left Atrial Appendage Occlusion (LAAOS III) trial, slightly more than 4800 patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) scheduled for open-heart surgery were randomly assigned to add-on surgical closure of the left atrial appendage or heart surgery alone. Both groups remained on standard medical therapy, including anticoagulation. Concomitant left atrial occlusion resulted in a statistically s...

May 14th, 2021 - The Watchman left atrial appendage (LAA) closure device (Boston Scientific) is associated with low 1-year stroke rates, despite being used commercially in older, sicker patients than seen in pivotal clinical trials, new data suggest. Among more than 36,000 patients with atrial fibrillation (AF), the Kaplan-Meier estimated rate of ischemic stroke at 1 year was 1. 53% (95% CI, 1 There is a paucit...

May 14th, 2021 - Treatment with sacubitril/valsartan, a pillar of therapy for patients with chronic heart failure with below-normal ejection fraction, came suggestively close to showing efficacy for preventing cardiovascular death or heart failure events in patients who have just had an MI but have no history of heart failure in a controlled trial with more than 5,600 patients. Although sacubitril/valsartan (En...

May 14th, 2021 - There was no significant difference in cardiovascular events or major bleeding between patients with established coronary heart disease (CHD) assigned to a daily aspirin dose of 81 mg and those receiving a dose of 325 mg in the 15,000-patient ADAPTABLE trial. Although substantial dose switching occurred in the trial, particularly from the higher to the lower dose, lead investigator W. Schuyler ...

May 14th, 2021 - UPDATED May 16, 2021 // Left atrial appendage occlusion performed at the time of other heart surgery reduces the risk for stroke by about one third in high-risk patients with atrial fibrillation (AF), according to results of the Left Atrial Appendage Occlusion Study III (LAAOS III). At 3.8 years' follow-up, the primary endpoint of ischemic stroke or systemic embolism occurred in 4.8% of patient...

May 14th, 2021 - UPDATED May 16, 2021 // Use of transcatheter aortic valve replacement/implantation (TAVR or TAVI) swiftly expanded from the high surgical risk to the low surgical risk settings, the necessary clinical trials following one after the other. But a good understanding of optimal post-TAVR antithrombotic therapy has been slower coming. Now, a 1500-patient trial has offered greater insight but also a ...

May 14th, 2021 - For Immediate Release: May 14, 2021 The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today announced the following actions taken in its ongoing response effort to the COVID-19 pandemic: As part of the FDA’s effort to protect consumers, on April 29, 2021 the agency issued a warning letter to Crown Wellness, Inc. for, among other things, selling an unapproved product with COVID-19 claims. Consumers concerne...

May 14th, 2021 - For Immediate Release: April 29, 2021 English Hoy, la Administración de Alimentos y Medicamentos de los EE.UU. (FDA, por sus siglas en inglés) anunció que se compromete a avanzar en el desarrollo de dos normas para productos del tabaco y reducir significativamente las enfermedades y muertes causadas por el uso de productos del tabaco de combustión, la principal causa de muertes evitables en los...

May 13th, 2021 - Takeaway In patients with venous thromboembolism (VTE) having body weight ≥120 kg or body mass index (BMI) >40 kg/m2, apixaban had similar rates of recurrent VTE or VTE-related death and lower rates of major bleeding and the composite of major or clinically relevant non-major (CRNM) bleeding compared with enoxaparin/warfarin. Results were consistent across different body weight and BMI categori...