An economic analysis of COAPT data suggests edge-to-edge TMVR with the MitraClip device is a more affordable long-term treatment option than guideline-directed medical therapy alone for patients with severe secondary MR—but the steep cost of an index TMVR procedure might eclipse that benefit.

Results from the COAPT study continue to roll in, and it was all positive news for the MitraClip team at the TCT conference in San Francisco this month.

A shortened, three-month course of dual antiplatelet therapy might be a safer bet than 12-month treatment for patients at a high risk of bleeding after PCI and implantation of a drug-eluting stent.

Five-year results of the ABSORB III trial suggest that, while target lesion failure and scaffold thrombosis have remained apparent in patients implanted with bioresorbable vascular scaffolds, the poor outcomes associated with BVS seemed to subside after three years, when the stents had completely dissolved.

The American Society of Nuclear Cardiology, together with eight other nuclear medicine and cardiology societies, have published a consensus document outlining the best practices for imaging and diagnosing cardiac amyloidosis.

Handheld POC echo has proven useful in- and outside of the emergency department, but physicians still have reservations.

With minimally invasive structural procedures crowding out their surgical counterparts, how are physicians and hospitals preparing for the new reality? 

“We anticipate that these expert multisocietal consensus recommendations on multimodality imaging in cardiac amyloidosis will standardize the diagnosis and improve the management of this highly morbid and underdiagnosed disease," wrote authors of the new guidelines published in the Journal of Nuclear Cardiology.