Sustained elevated blood pressure can increase a patient’s risk for both aortic valve stenosis and aortic regurgitation, according to an analysis of 5.4 million non-CVD patients in the U.K.

Minimally invasive cardiac surgery without peripheral cannulation is both safe and effective for correcting a wide range of congenital heart defects, including mitral valve repair and pulmonary stenosis, according to research published in Heart, Lung and Circulation this week.

Research out of Australia suggests newborns with congenital heart disease (CHD) are likely to have enlarged kidneys at birth—a finding that could help alert physicians to organ abnormalities before a child is born.

Early discharge following TAVR is associated with fewer readmissions and similar mortality over the following 30 days compared with a standard discharge strategy, according to a meta-analysis published in JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions.

Mothers or infants experienced no adverse cardiac events during 24 pregnancies completed by women who had undergone an arterial switch operation, according to a single-center, retrospective study published online Sept. 5 in JAMA Cardiology.

A learning curve of at least 225 procedures is required for hospitals to perform transcatheter aortic valve replacements (TAVRs) with the lowest mortality rates, suggests a study of 16 centers participating in an international registry.

Patients hospitalized with endocarditis can be safely switched from intravenous antibiotics to oral medication about halfway through the course of treatment, according to a randomized trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Cardiac patients who develop new-onset atrial fibrillation (AFib) after transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) are at a higher risk for complications like stroke, myocardial infarction and death than those whose AFib was established before the procedure, researchers report in the current online issue of JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions.