Ron Blankstein, MD, director of cardiac computed tomography for Brigham and Women’s Hospital, details recent developments in cardiac MRI, nuclear imaging and CT.

A care team in Germany has completed what may be the first structural heart procedure of its kind on a high-risk patient. It started as a straightforward heterotopic caval valve implantation, but then paravalvular leak resulted in a change of plans. 

"This breakthrough suggests that heart MRI could potentially replace invasive diagnostic tests," one specialist said. 

Researchers hoped to gain a better understanding of the device's real-world impact by reviewing registry data from more than 97,000 U.S. patients. Overall, the Watchman FLX was linked to positive data and limited adverse events one year after treatment. 

The agency is gathering feedback on a proposal to double the amount hospitals are paid for coronary computed tomography angiography, with the comment period ending Sept. 9.

The American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association and Heart Failure Society of America worked together on the updated document, adding three new performance measures and six new quality measures. They did not remove a single recommendation from the previous document published in 2020.

The J Valve from JC Medical was linked to positive outcomes and “excellent” hemodynamic data after 30 days in an early feasibility study published in JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions. Researchers noted that the valve showed potential in patients with large aortic annuli, which represents an "unmet critical need" at this stage. 

The new expert consensus decision pathway replaces a similar document from 2019 and is to be used in conjunction with heart failure guidelines published in 2022 by the ACC, American Heart Association and Heart Failure Society of America.