Acute Limited Intimal Tears of the Thoracic Aorta

A recent article published ahead-of-print in the journal Catheter Cardiovasc Interv. discusses the value of supra-annular structure measurements for size selection of self-expanding transcatheter heart valve in patients with bicuspid aortic valve.

Two clinical trials recently presented at the American College of Cardiology (ACC 2016) meeting evaluated the role of TAVR in intermediate-risk populations

In the October 5 issue of the NEJM a group of authors describe data evaluating possible subclinical leaflet thrombosis in bioprosthetic transcatheter and surgical valves.

This Perspective will be officially published on Vol. 5, No. 1 of Cardiovascular Diagnosis and Therapy. Citation format should refer to the official published version.

A study in the January 2015 issue of JACC Imaging describes the association between atherosclerotic plaque characteristics (APCs) assessed by coronary computed tomographic angiography (CTA) and lesion ischemia defined by fractional flow reserve (FFR).

In the European Heart Journal, Clavel et al. have just published exciting data about ‘paradoxical low-flow/low-gradient aortic stenosis’ (1). This condition has recently been discussed extensively in the context of transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR/TAVI) as reviewed in our journal (2-4).

A prospective, single-blind, randomized, sham-controlled trial published in the NEJM examined the impact of catheter-based renal-artery denervation on blood pressure in patients with resistant hypertension (1).

A paper published in the NEJM describes a comparison of transcatheter aortic-valve replacement (TAVR), using a self-expanding transcatheter aortic-valve bioprosthesis, with surgical aortic-valve replacement in patients with severe aortic stenosis and an increased risk of death during surgery (1).

In a recent article in the ‘Journal of Hypertension, the authors from the Department of Evidence Based Medicine, Fuwai Hospital, National Center for Cardiovascular Diseases, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing in China examine the risk of cigarette smoking on cardiovascular disease (CVD) and all-cause mortality among hypertensive patients (1).

African-Americans have higher rates of vascular events compared to whites (1-2). This higher event rates increases the attention to the determinants of atherosclerosis progression and its morphological features in African-Americans. Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS), multislice computed tomography, optical coherence tomography, and magnetic resonance are the imaging tools that employed in clinical practice and research studies.

A recent article from the West German Heart Center in Essen, Germany published in the European Heart journal discusses the relationship between air pollution, traffic noise, and cardiovascular disease (1).

Biodiversity loss and climate change secondary to human activities are increasingly being associated with adverse health effects. A recent position statement of the World Allergy Organization discusses the effects of biodiversity loss on environmental and commensal (indigenous) microbiotas. (1)

In a recent article in Chest Drs. Bernstein and Rice from the Center for Health and the Global Environment at the Harvard School of Public Health and Boston Children's Hospital discuss that climate change is a health threat no less consequential than cigarette smoking (1).

Based on the seminal work by Seymour Glagov and others, arterial remodeling of the coronary arteries was first described as an adaptive process maintaining luminal dimensions despite atherosclerotic plaque accumulation (1).

A recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine discusses clinical presentation and outcome of three patient with the H7N9 virus. (1)

Because of rapid changes in lifestyle and risk factors, cardiovascular disease has become the leading cause of death in China. A cross-sectional study in a nationally representative sample of 46 239 adults aged ≥20 years,published in 2012, demonstrated that serum total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels were high and increasing in the Chinese population. (1) The authors predicted that without effective intervention, atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases may soar in the near future.

Two recent articles in the NEJM discuss 1-year outcome between off-pump and on-pump CABG.

Atherosclerosis burden is thought to be related to contemporary lifestyles. A recent paper published in The Lancet described data obtained with whole body CT scans of 137 mummies from four different geographical regions or populations spanning more than 4000 years.

In a recent article published in JAMA, the authors describe results from a systematic review of reported hazard ratios (HRs) of all causemortality for overweight  and obesity relative to normal weight in the general population (1).

In the most recent issue of the Journal of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography an international group of imaging specialists provides a consensus opinion about peri-procedural imaging prior to TAVR/TAVI.

 In a recent study in the NEJM, the authors examine whether elective endovascular repair of abdominal aortic aneurysm reduces long-term morbidity and mortality, as compared with traditional open repair (1).

A recent paper in the European Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery describes long-term outcome after surgical aortic valve replacement (1). The investigators from Norway, state that the increasing age of our populations and improvements in the treatment options for aortic valvular disease have resulted in a considerable rise in the number of elderly patients being admitted for conventional aortic valve surgery.

Standard, invasive fractional flow reserve (FFR) is a physiologic measure of coronary stenosis severity, allowing identification of hemodynamic significant lesions during cardiac catheterization. The recently published ‘FAME 2’ trial has provided evidence that PCI of such lesions is a safe and effective therapeutic approach to obtain symptom relief and to decrease the rate of urgent revascularizations in patients with stable coronary artery disease (1).

A recent study published in BMJ Open, adds more data about the relationship between statins and glucose metabolism.