Precision medicine guides choice of better drug therapy in severe heart disease

Is personalized medicine cost-effective? Researchers have answered that question for one medical treatment, genotype-guided antiplatelet therapy for acute coronary syndrome patients with PCI. Their study uses pharmacogenomics and economic analysis of real-world clinical data.

Lung-Heart Super Sensor on a Chip Tinier Than a Ladybug

This chip’s detection bandwidth is enormous – from sweeping body motions to faint sounds of the heart as it beats, waves the heart sends through the body, respiration rate, and lung sounds.

Research News Tip Sheet: Story Ideas From Johns Hopkins

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Johns Hopkins Medicine Media Relations is focused on disseminating current, accurate and useful information to the public via the media. As part of that effort, we are distributing our “COVID-19 Tip Sheet: Story Ideas from Johns Hopkins” every Tuesday, throughout the duration of the outbreak.

Empowering Rural Doctors to Treat Advanced Heart Failure Improves Patient Outcomes

Travel restrictions imposed to curb the spread of COVID-19 are making it more difficult for some heart failure patients who have artificial heart pumps to participate in follow-up care at implantation centers far from their homes. But a new study suggests there may be a viable alternative.

According to University of Utah Health researchers, local doctors in rural areas who receive specialized training in managing the devices and who work in conjunction with cardiovascular experts at a major medical center can care for these patients safely and effectively.

Wearable Sensor Powered by AI Predicts Worsening Heart Failure Before Hospitalization

A new wearable sensor that works in conjunction with artificial intelligence technology could help doctors remotely detect critical changes in heart failure patients days before a health crisis occurs and could prevent hospitalization, according to a study led by University of Utah Health and VA Salt Lake City Health Care System scientists.

Nurse Invents App for Patients with a Left Ventricular Assist Device

In the early 90s, Dr. Jessie Casida was one of few nurses working on the first patient with a left ventricular assist device. The patient’s self-management responsibility was so complicated that it inspired him to create VADcare App.

GW Experts Available to Comment for Stories During American Heart Month

WASHINGTON (Jan. 29, 2020) — Heart disease is one of the leading causes of death in the U.S., according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. February is American Heart Month, which was created to remind Americans to…

Soy Supplements, Kids Sprinting to Health, Diets & Elite Soldier Performance & More from Medicine & Science in Sports & Science

If you’re looking for health and fitness story ideas, view these research highlights from ACSM’s flagship research journal, Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise®.

Scientists trace the molecular roots of potentially fatal heart condition

At a glance:

Research using heart cells from squirrels, mice and people identifies an evolutionary mechanism critical for heart muscle function

Gene defect that affects a protein found in the heart muscle interferes with this mechanism to cause hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a potentially fatal heart condition

Imbalance in the ratio of active and inactive protein disrupts heart muscle’s ability to contract and relax normally, interferes with heart muscle’s energy consumption

Treatment with a small-molecule drug restores proper contraction, energy consumption in human and rodent heart cells

If affirmed in subsequent studies, the results can inform therapies that could halt disease progression, help prevent common complications, including arrhythmias and heart failure

Therapy dog lifts patients’ hearts

Kepu Savou thought he had come down with a cold. When his symptoms persisted, he visited a doctor and learned that his heart was failing – something Savou never would’ve imagined at age 29.

He has been an inpatient at UW Medical Center, awaiting a donor heart for transplant. While the monthslong experience has been difficult, he says a program called Paws for Patients has provided much-needed emotional support. Program volunteers bring registered therapy dogs to visit patients who face challenging medical conditions.

Sleep & Endurance Performance, Female Racers, Reducing Falls, Youth Fitness & More from the Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports & Science®

If you’re looking for health and fitness story ideas, view these research highlights from Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews and Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise®, ACSM’s flagship journal.

Genetic Breakthrough Identifies Heart Failure Risk in African and Latino Americans

Findings may inform genetic screening test for patients at risk and medically under-served

Genetic Variant Largely Found in Patients of African Descent Increases Risk for Heart Failure

A genetic variant in the gene transthyretin (TTR) is a more significant cause of heart failure than previously believed. The study also revealed that a disease caused by this genetic variant, called hereditary transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy, is significantly underdiagnosed.

Stem Cell Therapy Helps Broken Hearts Heal in Unexpected Way

A study in Nature shows stem cell therapy helps hearts recover from a heart attack, although not for the biological reasons originally proposed two decades ago that today are the basis of ongoing clinical trials. The study reports that injecting living or even dead heart stem cells into the injured hearts of mice triggers an acute inflammatory process, which in turn generates a wound healing-like response to enhance the mechanical properties of the injured area.

Researchers Discover New Mutations in Gene Associated with Disease That Causes Weakening of the Heart

Researchers from the Intermountain Healthcare Heart Institute in Salt Lake City have identified new mutations in a gene commonly associated with non-ischemic dilated cardiomyopathy (NIDC), a disease that weakens the heart muscle, making it more difficult to adequately circulate blood to meet the body’s needs.

Artificial Intelligence Tool Predicts Life Expectancy in Heart Failure Patients

Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, as well as a diverse team of cardiologists and physicists, developed a machine learning algorithm to predict the life expectancy in heart failure patients.

Pairing New Medications Could Offer Hope to Heart Disease Patients

Cardiologist Bertram Pitt, MD, sees promise in combining two new classes of medication into a treatment regimen for patients with cardiovascular disease. Pitt will discuss the advantages of this treatment plan in his plenary lecture at an American Physiological Society Conference in Estes Park, Colo.

Three-Year COAPT Data Demonstrates Continued Safety and Effectiveness in Patients with Heart Failure and Secondary Mitral Regurgitation

The three-year results from the COAPT trial demonstrated that reducing severe secondary mitral regurgitation (SMR) with the MitraClip device safely improves prognosis in selected heart failure (HF) patients. In addition, those patients that crossed over and received the MitraClip after 24 months showed the same benefits as those who received the device at the beginning of the study. Two-year data were presented at TCT 2018 and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Improving Doctor-Patient Communication at the End of Life: Multi-Center Study Suggests It Can Be Done

To find out whether an intervention could increase the number of discussions between clinicians and patients with heart failure about the kinds of treatments they would want at the end of their lives, also known as advance care planning, researchers at The Mount Sinai Hospital developed a rigorous six-center study to investigate a novel communication intervention. The study appears in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Announcing the TCT 2019 Late-Breaking Trials and Science

The Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) has announced the 12 late-breaking trials and 16 late-breaking science presentations that will be reported at the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) 2019 scientific symposium. TCT, the world’s premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine, will take place September 25 – 29, 2019 at The Moscone Center in San Francisco, California.