Non-vitamin K oral anticoagulants (NOACs) including dabigatran, rivaroxaban, apixaban and edoxaban have replaced warfarin as the preferred treatment for reducing stroke risk in patients with atrial fibrillation, according to updated…

Royal Philips and the American Heart Association are collaborating for a new program devoted to increasing survival rates in patients who experience sudden cardiac arrest (SCA), the organizations announced Jan. 23.

The…

Leadless pacemakers are a viable alternative to conventional pacemakers in patients with a history of device infection and lead extraction, researchers reported in the January edition of…

Abbott on Jan. 21 announced the FDA approval of one of its atrial fibrillation (AFib) ablation catheters, the TactiCath Contact Force Ablation Catheter.

The sensor-enabled catheter “delivers more precise images of the…

The majority of patients who present to the emergency department (ED) after fainting likely don’t need to be monitored for more than two hours to rule out any dangerous underlying arrhythmias, Canadian researchers have found.

A prospective, single-center study from Denmark suggests nearly half of patients develop a new conduction abnormality after transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), impacting their short-term and long-term prognosis.

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Young victims of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) and death are more likely to have a history of cardiovascular disease and some relationship with drugs or psychiatric illness, according to research published Jan. 19 in the…

Women implanted with cardiac implantable electronic devices (CIEDs) like pacemakers, implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) and cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) technologies are more likely to experience acute CIED…

Medtronic announced on Jan. 15 the launch of a mobile app that connects four of the company’s pacemakers to patients’ smartphones and…

Men who are dissatisfied with their marriages are around 86 percent more likely to experience sudden cardiac death (SCD) than those who are very satisfied, according to research published in the Jan. 1 edition of the…

A high-density electroanatomic mapping study of 75 patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) has concluded that even a regular alcohol intake—up to 14 standard drinks per week—is associated with impairments in electrical signaling and more…

AI applied to an electrocardiogram (EKG) test reliably detected asymptomatic left ventricular dysfunction (ALVD)—a precursor to heart failure—and predicted which patients were most at risk of developing the condition in the future,…

A side-by-side comparison of electronic and analog stethoscopes suggests a digital approach to auscultation is indeed superior to its predecessors, debunking the idea that electronic models might suffer from sound cutoffs and contact…

Chronic exposure to secondhand smoke in common settings like cars, homes and casinos may increase a person’s susceptibility to cardiac alternans, a precursor to ventricular arrhythmias, according to an animal study published in…

Experts Outline Device Selection, Prophylactic Antibiotics, Pre-procedural Protocols & Post-implementation Vigilance 

Cardiac implantable electronic devices (CIEDs) have been heralded as a major advance in patient care,…

Compared to drug therapy alone, catheter ablation nearly halved the risk of death and improved a range of clinical outcomes for patients with both heart failure and atrial fibrillation (AFib) in a meta-analysis.

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About 1 in 6 patients with newly diagnosed atrial fibrillation (AFib) who are considered at low risk of stroke advance to a higher risk category within one year, according to a…

The FDA has granted premarket approval to Cardiva Medical’s vascular closure system for use during electrophysiology procedures such as cardiac ablation and left atrial appendage closure, the company announced Dec. 18.

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U.K.-based startup Cambridge Heartware has announced the launch of its company and its first product, a wearable heart monitor powered by artificial intelligence, in early 2019.

CEO Rameen Shakur, MD, PhD, also a…

A trial designed to test the effectiveness of additional antibiotic prophylaxis before and after cardiac electronic device implantation found that such an approach did not significantly lower the rate of subsequent infections, although…

It takes emergency medical services (EMS) almost four minutes longer to transport cardiac arrest patients from poor neighborhoods to the hospital versus those from high-income neighborhoods, according to a…