The American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) has released a list of five interventions whose appropriateness physicians and patients should discuss as part of Choosing Wisely, an initiative of the ABIM Foundation, along with Consumer Reports. Fourth in the list, they ask that patients and their doctors talk about the real need for a stress echocardiogram if they do not present conditions that would warn them of a risk of heart disease.

This is a roundup of some of the DAIC editor's choice of the most innovative new technologies showcased at ACC 2013, including products in the areas of interventional cardiology, patient monitoring, electrophysiology and echocardiography.

Thoratec Corp. announced that it has successfully completed the first human use of HeartMate PHP (percutaneous heart pump). The first PHP patient was supported for over 60 minutes during a high-risk percutaneous coronary intervention (HR PCI). The patient was hemodynamically stable during the procedure, which involved three-vessel intervention on a patient with an ejection fraction less than 30 percent. Two additional patients were treated as part of this first-in-man series. The procedures were performed by Adrian Ebner, M.D. at Sanatorio Italiano in Asuncion, Paraguay. Ebner is the chief of the Cardiovascular Department at Sanatorio Italiano.

Minimally invasive procedures significantly lower health payer costs and result in fewer missed workdays when compared to open surgery, according to a study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Surgery. Of six procedures examined, the percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) arm of the study drove the cost savings. This is an important finding, considering that heart disease remains the leading cause of death and disability in the United States and accounts for considerable expenditures in healthcare services, medications and lost productivity.