CARDIOPROGRESS
Foundation for the advancement of cardiology

Heart failure management in adults with congenital heart disease: are we on the ‘right path’? In recent years, surgical advances in the treatment of congenital heart disease (CHD) ensured a huge survival benefit. Therefore, the ageing population of adults with CHD is now frequently exposed to the long-term complications of living a long life with a deranged haemodynamics. Some groups of CHD constitute unique pathophysiological conditions, being predisposed to a wide array of undesired events in the long-term.

Transcatheter aortic valve intervention in patients with cancer The prevalence of concurrent cancer and severe aortic stenosis (AS) is increasing due to an ageing population. In addition to shared traditional risk factors for AS and cancer, patients with cancer may be at increased risk for AS due to off-target effects of cancer-related therapy, such as mediastinal radiation therapy (XRT), as well as shared non-traditional pathophysiological mechanisms.

Why Don't More Women Participate in Cardiac Rehabilitation? The biggest barrier to enrollment and participation in cardiac rehabilitation (CR) among women globally is lack of awareness, an international cross-sectional study suggests.

Cardiac Troponin Predicts Mortality Post Surgery Perioperative myocardial injury, reflected by release of high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T, is associated with 30-day mortality after various cardiac surgeries at postoperative prognostic cutoffs higher than proposed in current definitions, new research suggests.

New Insight Into Genetic Link Between Schizophrenia and CVD There is an extensive genetic overlap between schizophrenia and smoking, but there are also schizophrenia genes that may protect against obesity, illustrating the bidirectional effects of shared loci across cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors, results of new research suggest.

Obesity-Related Cardiovascular Disease Deaths Surging In contrast to an overall decline in cardiovascular mortality, obesity-related cardiovascular deaths have risen substantially in the past two decades, most prominently among Black women.

Minimizing Atrial Pacing No Benefit in Sinus Node Disease: DANPACE II Minimizing atrial pacing does not alter the risk of atrial fibrillation (AF) associated with sinus node dysfunction (SND), suggest results of a trial that randomly assigned patients with SND who had received their first pacemaker implant to one of two pacing programs.

Heartbeat: improving outcomes after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest Immediate cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and early defibrillation are essential in ensuring survival after an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA), which is estimated to account for 15–20% of global mortality. Yet widespread training in CPR and availability of public defibrillators remains suboptimal in many places.

Reproductive Technologies Not Tied to Maternal CVD After a median follow-up of 11 years, women who gave birth with the assistance of reproductive technology were not at increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) compared to those who did not receive this intervention, a new study shows.

Adverse Fetal Environment Is a Cardiovascular Risk Factor Fetal exposure to poorly controlled diabetes or other situations that overtax the heart, or to intrauterine growth restriction, is associated with increased cardiovascular risk, according to the most recent evidence.

Baxdrostat: A “Game Changer” for Hypertension? A new class of antihypertensive agent that blocks the production of aldosterone — a key hormone believed to drive increased blood pressure — has shown impressive results in one of the first pivotal phase 3 trials in patients with resistant or uncontrolled hypertension.

ACC Recommends Vaccination Against Respiratory Illness in Cardiovascular Disease Adults with heart disease should get vaccinated against a range of respiratory viruses, according to new clinical guidance from the American College of Cardiology.

AHA Issues Advice on Incidentally Identified CVD Gene Variants The American Heart Association (AHA) has issued guidance on how to handle genetic tests that unexpectedly find gene variants associated with inherited cardiovascular disease (CVD).

Does New Heart Transplant Method Challenge Definition of Death? The relatively recent innovation of heart transplantation after circulatory death of the donor is increasing the number of donor hearts available and leading to many more lives on the heart transplant waiting list being saved. Experts agree it's a major and very welcome advance in medicine.

Spanish company closes a financing round of one million euros Spanish Company a spin-off from the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP), the UPC and the University of Barcelona (UB), has successfully closed a funding round led by Grow Ventures together with Namarel Ventures and Inveniam Group where they have secured more than one million euros.

Insomnia, Short Sleep Linked to Greater Risk for MI Insomnia — difficulty falling or staying asleep — was associated with a 69% greater risk of having a myocardial infarction (MI) than among adults without insomnia, according to new research.

New ACC, AHA, SCAI Interventional Cardiology Training Guidance The American College of Cardiology (ACC), the American Heart Association (AHA), and the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) have jointly issued new guidance outlining competency-based advanced training requirements for interventional cardiology trainees.

Guidance for PCI Without Onsite Surgical Backup Updated The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions has issued an updated expert consensus statement to provide clearer guidance on what percutaneous coronary angioplasty cases can be done in outpatient settings such as ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) and office-based laboratories and which are best left to more traditional settings, such as hospitals with full cardiac support.

3 challenges to watch in global health in 2023 For the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, people working in the infectious diseases and global health spheres were largely focused on the new disease. In 2022, however, gears shifted. Covid didn’t go away, but diseases like flu that had been held in abeyance by the new virus and the measures we used to slow its spread — well, they’re baaack. From late summer onward in the United States, hospitals have been packed with people sick with one respiratory illness or another.

ADA Advises New BP, Lipid Targets for People With Diabetes New more aggressive targets for blood pressure and lipids are among the changes to the annual American Diabetes Association (ADA) Standards of Care in Diabetes — 2023. The document, long considered the gold standard for care of the more than 100 million Americans living with diabetes and prediabetes, was published December 12 as a supplement in Diabetes Care. The guidelines are also accessible to doctors via an app; last year's standards were accessed more than 4 million times.