A view of GE Healthcare's volume max, or Vmax, which allows for nearly triple the frame rate speeds on 3-D TEE in a single beat over previous generation systems.

The higher expense and lower frame rates of 3-D cardiac ultrasound systems have limited their adoption over the past decade and have begged the question at the annual American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) meetings whether 3-D is a necessary technology. However, sessions at ASE 2018 showed the focus on 3-D imaging systems has definitely changed from a research tool to a front-line echo workhorse.

January 31, 2019 — Nearly half (48 percent, 121.5 million in 2016) of all adults in the United States have some type of cardiovascular disease, according to new statistics released by the American Heart Association (AHA). The AHA Heart and Stroke Statistics — 2019 Update are published in the association’s journal Circulation.1

Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered a novel signaling pathway that promotes healing after a heart attack. The study, published in Cell Metabolism, demonstrates for the first time that the metabolism of dead heart cells by macrophages reprograms the immune cells to launch an anti-inflammatory response and stimulate tissue repair.

Rising temperatures stemming from global climate change may increase the number of infants born with congenital heart defects (CHD) in the U.S. over the next two decades, according to new research in the Journal of the American Heart Association.1 This may also result in as many as 7,000 additional cases over an 11 year-period in eight representative states — Arkansas, Texas, California, Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia, New York and Utah.

Rivaroxaban is among four new oral anticoagulants (NOAC) now recommended by atrial fibrillation guidelines over the old standard of warfarin.

January 30, 2019 — Updated atrial fibrillation (AFib) treatment guidelines released this week now recommend new oral anticoagulants (NOACs) as the preferred alternative to warfarin for reducing the risk of stroke.
The Boston Scientific Eluvia self-expanding, drug-eluting peripheral stent. It outperformed the Cook Zilver stent in the IMPERIAL Trial presented at TCT 2018.
Intact Vascular Inc. developed the Tack Endovascular System to repair artery dissections caused by balloon angioplasty. Rather than using a full-sized stent, this system "tacks" the vessel wall with a very short stent of only a few millimeters to avoid encasing the vessel with metal, which can lead to high restenosis rates.
The LimFlow System enables a transcatheter bypass graft to be created from the tibial vein from the tibial artery to avoid foot amputations in CLI patients. Self-expanding, covered stents are used to line the entire vein and transfer point into the artery to create a bypass circuit to restore blood flow to the foot.

In recent years, there has been a lot of focus by vendors on developing better stenting technologies to treat peripheral artery disease (PAD). Part of this has been fueled by the rising numbers of peripheral interventional procedures for PAD, critical limb ischemia (CLI, also called chronic limb-threatening ischemia) and limb salvage to prevent amputation. But new technology development also has been spurred by the need to reduce extremely high restenosis rates.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared the Magnetom Lumina 3 Tesla (3T) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner from Siemens Healthineers.

XableCath Inc., announced that its XableCath blunt and abrasion tip catheters were cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as peripheral crossing catheters. The catheters have been safely and successfully used to cross challenging lesions in both arterial chronic total occlusions (CTOs) and chronic obstructive venous lesions. The recent crossing FDA clearance adds to the previous clearances for endovascular support.

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