The Center for Diagnostic Imaging (CDI) in Miami recently released a list of important preparations patients should make before undergoing a computed tomography (CT) scan.

Transcatheter interventions have become a mainstay in cardiac care as treatments for structural and congenital heart disease transition from open-heart surgery to minimally invasive procedures. These procedures, while minimally invasive for patients, often have added degrees of patient-related and procedural-related complexity. 

The Fysicon QMAPP hemodynamic monitoring system is the newest system to gain FDA clearance. It is about the size of a ream of paper.

Beyond measuring blood flow, pressure, oxygen levels and other vital signs in the cardiac catheterization lab, current hemodynamic monitoring systems are an integral part of clinical reporting. Hemodynamic data from newer systems helps autocompletion of data fields in procedure reports, can automate gathering registry data, and can help interface cath lab patient data with the patient’s electronic medical record (EMR).
SCAI and the European Society of Cardiology recently added iFR to their guidelines.

The use of invasive, pressure wire-based fractional flow reserve (FFR) in the cath lab is now considered the gold standard for assessing the hemodynamic significance of coronary lesions to determine if they should be revascularized or treated medically. Despite being a part of the guidelines and clinician evidence clearly showing the benefit to using FFR, it is still not used in many patients.This is partly due to increased procedure costs from the wires, added procedural time and the use of adenosine as a stressor agent, which can be uncomfortable for patients.

Aspirin prevented serious vascular events in patients with diabetes who did not already have cardiovascular disease, but it caused almost as many major bleeds and there was no effect on cancers. These are the late-breaking findings presented in a Hot Line Session at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Congress 2018, Aug. 25-28 in Munich, Germany, and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Biotronik announced it is now the exclusive U.S. distributor for the MoMe Kardia external cardiac diagnostic monitor from digital health company InfoBionic. The device benefits patients suspected of experiencing cardiac arrhythmias.

The jury is still out on whether people at moderate risk of a first heart attack or stroke should take daily aspirin to lower their risk, according to late-breaking results from the ARRIVE study. Results from ARRIVE (Aspirin to Reduce Risk of Initial Vascular Events) were presented in a Hot Line Session at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Congress 2018, Aug. 25-28 in Munich, Germany, with simultaneous publication in The Lancet.1

Prevencio Inc. announced new data demonstrating its HART PAD test accurately diagnoses peripheral artery disease (PAD) in diabetes mellitus (DM) patients, a patient population in which PAD prevalence has traditionally been difficult to assess. Researchers believe these findings, presented at the 2018 European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Congress, Aug. 25-28 in Munich, Germany, could lead to early identification of PAD and improve patient clinical outcomes, as well as prevent patients without PAD from undergoing unnecessary, expensive and invasive tests.

The Zoll LifeVest wearable defibrillator system was evaluated in the late-breaking VEST Trial presented at ACC 2018 earlier this year. A review article on the results was the No. 1 most viewed article in July and August.

September 4, 2018 — Here is the list of the most popular content on the Diagnostic and Interventional Cardiology (DAIC) magazine website from the month of August 2018. This is based on website analytics of the month’s 192,631 pageviews in August:

1. Diving Deeper Into the Results of the VEST Trial Using Wearable Defibrillators
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