Digoxin, a cardiac glycoside popularly sold under the brand name Lanoxin, poses a major threat to the heart health of atrial fibrillation (AF) and heart failure (HF) patients, according to a review published in the American Journal of Cardiology Oct. 4. Even without confounding conditions, the drug can raise an individual’s risk of all-cause mortality.

Women who suffer from peripartum cardiomyopathy (PPCM) will likely be clinically asymptomatic seven years after they give birth, according to research published in the Journal of the American Heart Association Oct. 3—but it’s also likely they’ll develop enduring diastolic dysfunction and reduced exercise capacity in the same window.

Heart failure (HF) patients who experience moderate functional mitral regurgitation (FMR) for at least six months after cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) are at an increased risk for death, researchers suggest in a study published this week.

Compared to heart failure patients with severe secondary mitral regurgitation who were treated with guideline-directed medical therapy alone, those randomized to a MitraClip procedure plus optimal medical therapy demonstrated relative reductions of 47 percent for heart failure hospitalizations and 38 percent for mortality at two years of follow-up.

A Journal of the American College of Cardiology study this week linked long-term alcohol consumption to adverse cardiac remodeling in patients who were initially young and healthy—something the paper’s authors said might be offset by drinking predominantly wine.

Heart failure patients who are discharged from the hospital before they reach euvolemia—a healthy balance of blood in the body—are more likely to be readmitted in both the short- and long-term, according to research published in the American Journal of Cardiology this month.

Hospice use in the U.S. has grown to nearly 5 percent among elderly patients with heart failure (HF), according to a JAMA Cardiology study published Aug. 29, but palliative care will likely become increasingly difficult as treatment continues to improve.

Less than two weeks after the FDA sent a warning letter to cardiologists about high mortality and stroke rates associated with SynCardia Systems’ Companion 2 (C2) Driver System, the company has published a response saying pre-implant risk factors were responsible for those outcomes.