Structural Heart Disease

Structural heart diseases include any issues preventing normal cardiovascular function due to damage or alteration to the anatomical components of the heart. This is caused by aging, advanced atherosclerosis, calcification, tissue degeneration, congenital heart defects and heart failure. The most commonly treated areas are the heart valves, in particular the mitral and aortic valves. These can be replaced through open heart surgery or using cath lab-based transcatheter valves or repairs to eliminate regurgitation due to faulty valve leaflets. This includes transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR). Other common procedures include left atrial appendage (LAA) occlusion and closing congenital holes in the heart, such as PFO and ASD. A growing area includes transcatheter mitral repair or replacement and transcatheter tricuspid valve repair and replacement.

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Repeat TAVR leads to better short-term outcomes than TAVR explantation

Repeat TAVR is expected to grow more and more common as time goes on, making it especially important to study its impact on patient outcomes.

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CAC scores help predict TAVR mortality

The analysis, published in Radiology, included more than 300 patients who presented with severe aortic stenosis.

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TMVR outcomes suffer when patients have heart failure and diabetes—but benefits remain

Overall, the authors emphasized, TMVR helped heart failure patients with and without diabetes.

Next-day discharge after TMVR is on the rise

By 2018, nearly half of all TMVR patients were going home the very next day. Outcomes for these patients have been consistently positive. 

‘Making good, better’: Next-gen TAVR techniques and protocols optimize patient care, boost efficiency

Sponsored by Medtronic

Innovation in the transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) space has upped the ante once again.

Tricuspid valve repair outperforms replacement, new meta-analysis confirms

The study's authors examined outcomes data from more than 8,500 tricuspid valve repairs and nearly 9,000 tricuspid valve replacements.

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AI model evaluates ECG data as well as cardiologists

The team's convolutional neural network was trained on data that is readily available at most facilities. 

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3 risk factors associated with endocarditis after TPVR

Researchers tracked data from nearly 2,500 patients from 15 different facilities, sharing their findings in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.