IMPORTANCE: Studies have shown that adverse events are associated with increasing inpatient care expenditures, but contemporary data on the association between expenditures and adverse events beyond inpatient care are limited. To evaluate whether hospital-specific adverse event rates are associated with hospital-specific risk-standardized 30-day episode-of-care Medicare expenditures for fee-for-service patients discharged with acutemyocardial infarction(AMI), heart failure (HF), or pneumonia. This cross-sectional study used the 2011 to 2016 hospital-specific risk-standardized 30-day episode-of-care expenditure data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and medical record-abstracted in-hospital adverse event data from the Medicare Patient Safety Monitoring System. Continue reading →

BACKGROUND: Cardiogenic shock (CS) is a severe complication ofmyocardial infarction(MI) or of takotsubo syndrome (TTS). For both diseases, CS is related to a worse long-term outcome. The outcome of CS has not been studied in a direct comparison of patients with MI and patients with TTS. Continue reading →

The treatment of patients with dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) after a percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for acute coronary syndrome was found to be associated with a reduction in de novo atherothrombotic ischemic events, according to a study published in theJournal of the American College of Cardiology. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of DAPT on the etiology and timing of cardiovascular death and myocardial infarction in patients who had undergone PCI for ACS. Continue reading →

April 3, 2020 The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) and the Canadian Association of Interventional Cardiology (CAIC) have announced the formation of the North American COVID-19 ST-Segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction Registry (NACMI). The study will be chaired by Tim Henry, MD (SCAI) and Payam Dehghani, MD (CAIC). Any COVID-19 positive patients or persons under investigation (PUI) with ST-Segment Elevation or new-onset left bundle branch block with a clinical correlate of myocardial ischemia (chest pain, dyspnea, cardiac arrest, hemodynamic instability) will be in enrolled Continue reading →

1. In this secondary analysis of data from the CANTOS trial in 2017, canakinumab significantly reduced the incidence of anemia in patients with a history of myocardial infarction Continue reading →

From Milan to Madrid to Massachusetts, everyone is asking: as the COVID-19 pandemic drags on, where have all the STEMIs gone? In the Lombardy region of Italy, said Bernhard Reimers, MD (Humanitas Research Hospital, Milan), STEMI cases are down by an estimated 70%. If symptoms are not too bad, they don't call the ambulance because they are afraid to go into hospital, Reimers speculated. Continue reading →

Bernie Sanders wouldn't let a heart attack stop him. In the end, an unseen enemy provided the final blow to his presidential campaign. Continue reading →

The Montreal Heart Institute (MHI) Research Center announced on April 7 a strategic partnership with the NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York City for its COVID-19 clinical study to evaluate whether colchicine will have an effect on preventing the phenomenon of major inflammatory storm present in adults suffering from severe complications related to COVID-19. The clinical study, named COLCORONA, will involve the recruitment of approximately 6,000 participants who will be followed for 30 days with initial results available a few days after study completion Continue reading →