By Enrique Rivero
FINDINGS
UCLA-led research finds that among adult congenital heart disease (CHD) transplant recipients, single-ventricle physiology correlated with higher short-term mortality. But 10-year conditional survival was similar for biventricular and most single-ventricle CHD patients, and notably better for biventricular CHD patients compared to non-CHD heart transplant recipients. Read more from UCLA Health.
By Zulekha Nathoo
A 23-year-old woman in Akron, Ohio, was moved to tears after meeting the family of someone who saved her life.
“Just absolutely amazing and breathtaking, emotional, but also gratifying,” said heart transplant recipient Katherine Herrmann.
Herrmann had undergone 20 surgeries and procedures on her heart before even reaching the age of 20. When she suffered heart failure while still in college, her doctors told her a transplant was the only option to keep her alive. Read the full story in USA Today.
By Regina Schaffer
By Larry R. Jackson II, MD, MHSc
Atrial fibrillation affects 2.7 million to 6.1 million people in the U.S., according to the American Heart Association, and that burden is expected to rise substantially in the coming years.
With AF comes risk for other CV conditions, including a fivefold elevated risk for stroke compared with the general population, yet many people remain undiagnosed and some people are at much higher risk for AF than others. Read the full story in Healio.
Organ donors are some of the most selfless people in the world, so it’s always emotional when someone who received an organ from a donor can meet their family.
That’s what happened when 22-year-old Katherine Herrmann met the family of an organ donor who gave her a new heart. Hermann received her new heart last summer, after having a lifetime of heart problems and 20 surgeries, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Check out the story on Click 2 Houston.com.
By Stephen Feller
The FDA on Monday approved and authorized updated COVID-19 vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech that target omicron XBB subvariants of SARS-CoV-2.
The agency fully approved the monovalent messenger RNA vaccines for people aged 12 years or older and authorized them for emergency use among people aged 6 months to 11 years. Read more in Healio.
By Peter Wehrwein, Managing Editor
The advent of the direct-acting antivirals, such as Harvoni (ledipasvir and sofosbuvir) means people can be treated for HCV infection if they receive a heart from an HCV-viremic donor, according to a recent review paper. The supply of hearts available for transplantation has increased, partly because HCV-viremic individuals are now part of the donor pool.
Transplanting organs, including hearts, from people infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) used to be avoided because of the risk of infection and studies showing that the recipients had worse outcomes,
Marina Nunez, M.D., Ph.D., of Wake Forest School of Medicine, co-wrote a review paper exploring the hepatitis C infection and heart transplantation.
But when the direct-acting antivirals against hepatitis C started to come on the market, particularly Harvoni (ledipasvir and sofosbuvir) in 2014, the views and practices changed. Read more in Managed Healthcare Executive.
By Regina Schaffer
People with hypertension are more likely to have higher systolic BP and slightly worse BP control during winter vs. summer months, researchers reported at the American Heart Association Hypertension Scientific Sessions.
“Seasonal variation in blood pressure has a substantial effect on hypertension control, often defined as a BP of less than 140/90 mm Hg,” Robert Barrett, a software engineer with the AMA, told Healio. “Patients with hypertension are less likely to have their BP controlled during winter than summer months.” Read more in Healio.
By Elise Takahama
It had been less than two weeks since giving birth when a coronary artery in Adriana Rodriguez’s heart burst.
The sudden tear interrupted an early December breakfast with her mother in Bellingham, and within minutes her chest started tightening. A wave of nausea weakened her body. She wanted to curl up into a ball.
Read the full story in The Seattle Times.
By Emma Bascom
Seeing how much a medication would cost a patient helped some physicians make decisions when prescribing, according to the results of research published in JAMA Internal Medicine.
“Many Americans struggle with the affordability of their prescription drugs, and we need interventions that can help people find lower cost medications to help people be able to afford their needed medications,” Anna Doar Sinaiko, PhD, MPP, an assistant professor of health economics and policy at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told Healio. Read the full article in Healio.
By Isabella Hornick
Patients with COPD who underwent autologous transplantation of lung progenitor cells had improved gas exchange capacity, quality of life and walking distance, according to study results.
Further, these results, presented at European Respiratory Society International Congress, showed that transplant of these P63+ progenitor cells repaired lung damage in those with mild emphysema.
Read more from Healio.