University of Pennsylvania researchers have developed a stem cell-based test to determine whether genetic variants in heart muscle cells are benign or pathogenic. In other words, they’ve added some certainty to variants of uncertain significance—the tricky alleles that can either contribute to the development of diseases or be completely harmless.

Receiving the flu vaccine could improve cardiovascular and all-cause mortality outcomes in patients with heart failure, according to a large-scale study of Danish citizens published Dec. 10 in Circulation.

A study presented Dec. 6 at the EuroEcho-Imaging 2018 conference in Milan adds to the debate over the "obesity paradox," finding that acute heart failure patients with a body mass index (BMI) of 23 or higher had better survival over nearly three years of follow-up than those with a BMI below that threshold.

Heart patients who suffer Takotsubo cardiomyopathy (TC) could face longer hospital stays, poorer outcomes and more than $150,000 in hospital bills if they’re undergoing chemotherapy simultaneously, researchers report in the American Journal of Cardiology.

Data presented at the 2018 EuroEcho-Imaging congress in Milan suggest breast cancer patients who take the common chemo drug trastuzumab might be able to mitigate their risk of heart damage by supplementing with carvedilol, a beta-blocker used predominantly by cardiac patients.

Home telemonitoring approaches for heart failure patients are associated with lower odds of death at six months but not beyond that, according to a meta-analysis published in the December issue of Health Affairs.

Seniors taking five or more prescription drugs to treat heart failure could be at an increased risk for functional impairment, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Using a biomarker target to guide the treatment of patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) resulted in higher healthcare costs without significant improvements in quality of life compared to standard treatment, according to an analysis from the GUIDE-IT study.