Although efforts to reduce heart failure (HF)-related deaths and readmissions in the United States were successful in the early 2000s, rates of HF-related ER visits, comorbid hospitalizations and mortality are at a standstill in 2018, according to a nationwide study published Dec. 11 in Circulation: Heart Failure.

Three administrators at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, including the CEO, have resigned following a report from the Tampa Bay Times that found mortality rates tripled in the pediatric heart surgery unit from 2015 to 2017—even as the center began to turn away more challenging cases.

Two baboons recently survived for six months following the transplantation of genetically modified pig hearts, bringing scientists closer to potentially using animal organs for humans who need transplants.

Women suffering ST-segment elevation MI (STEMI) wait on average 37 minutes longer than men to call for help, according to research published in the European Heart Journal: Acute Cardiovascular Care.

As insulin prices in the U.S. continue to surge, lower-income diabetics are struggling to afford a drug their life depends on, researchers report in a JAMA Internal Medicine study published Dec. 3.

The use of paclitaxel-coated balloons and stents in the femoropopliteal arteries of patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD) was associated with relative mortality increases of 68 percent and 93 percent at two and five years of follow-up, respectively, according to a meta-analysis published Dec. 6 in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

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.

Hospitals with favorable outcomes for surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR) procedures subsequently see better transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) outcomes when they launch TAVR programs, researchers reported in JAMA Cardiology Dec. 5, suggesting the quality of an institution’s surgical team could be an indicator of how they’ll fare after they initiate TAVR.