Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the Western industrialized world, and according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), accounts for one of every 19 deaths in the United States each year. Over 80 percent of strokes are ischemic in nature, caused by clots and other obstructions in vessels that supply blood to the brain, and cardiac embolism accounts for approximately one-third of all cases of ischemic stroke. Echocardiography in general and transesophageal echocardiography in particular are essential for evaluation, diagnosis and management of stroke and systemic embolism. A new document, Guidelines for the Use of Echocardiography in the Evaluation of a Cardiac Source of Embolism, will appear in the January 2016 issue of the Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography (JASE) and provides the first set of guidelines from the American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) specific to this topic.

Corindus Vascular Robotics Inc. announced the launch of a CorPath robotic-assisted coronary intervention program at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the installation of its first CorPath System.

A new study determined that the Watchman left atrial appendage closure device is more cost-effective than warfarin and non-warfarin oral anticoagulants (NOACs) for stroke reductions in non-valvular atrial fibrillation patients.

A new study from the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) offers insight from nearly 200 healthcare executives (C-Suite, administrators, directors and vice presidents) on their population health initiatives, and their current and future approach to population health IT solutions and consultants.

Booz Allen Hamilton and Kaggle announced that the second annual Data Science Bowl will call on the global data science community to create a set of steps, or algorithms, to help transform diagnosis of heart disease. Through a partnership with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), participants in the 90-day competition will be given magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images and asked to develop an algorithm to automate the measurements that are key indicators of heart disease.

January 4, 2016 — Living with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PH) is challenging, but the chore of treating the rare ...

December 29, 2015 — Heart attack patients who had previously undergone coronary artery bypass graft surgery were less ...