“It is your responsibility to be the patient’s advocate,” one expert explained. “We, as the nurses and technologists, have to speak up when we see something that isn’t right.”

Transcatheter patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) closure has been a mainstay in congenital interventional cardiology for decades, but changes in the standard of care have resulted in catheter-based treatments overtaking surgical procedures. 

More and more care teams are treating BAV stenosis with TAVR instead of surgical aortic valve replacement. Self-expanding and balloon-expandable valves appear to have their own benefits—as well as their own risks. 

Hemodynamic valve deterioration after one year was more common in patients with a small aortic annulus. In fact, receiving a larger valve was linked to a “protective” quality that appeared to help keep the risk of such complications to a minimum.

New ACC/AHA recommendations encourage clinicians to take a proactive approach when managing patients with elevated or high blood pressure. The inclusion of renal denervation in this document represents clear progress for a relatively new technology.

The Society of Thoracic Surgeons Risk Calculator is more traditionally used to calculate short-term risks, but this single-center analysis suggests it can also anticipate issues well into the future.

Treatment with the device is consistently safe, but researchers still think more data is required before reaching any conclusions about its efficacy. 

Jaffar Khan, MD, explained his team's work using intravascular lithotripsy balloons in a cadaver heart to break up mitral annular calcification.