Medical research and art sometimes meet at their finest: experts from the Fraunhofer Institute for Medical Image Computing MEVIS in Bremen produced a three-dimensional movie, showing the human heart in full action. The organ beats and pumps, and special techniques visualize the dynamic flow of blood in the vessels. The sequence is part of a new interactive three-dimensional experience to be…
The Society of Thoracic Surgeons, the Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists, and the American Society of ExtraCorporeal Technology have released a set of clinical practice guidelines to address management of a patient's temperature during open heart surgery. The guidelines appear in the August issue of The Annals of Thoracic Surgery and were published simultaneously in two other journals.
Blood clots often form when lipid-rich plaques on the inner surface of arteries rupture and platelets aggregate at the site of injury. LMU cardiologists have now compared the effects of two new platelet aggregation inhibitors.
Results from six international randomised controlled studies conclusively and uniformly confirm, for the very first time, the effectiveness of thrombectomy in patients with acute, severe ischaemic strokes caused by a blood clot in one of the proximal cerebral arteries. The endovascular procedure is an add-on to conventional thrombolysis. EH reports from a German Stroke Society (DSG) press…
Certain commonly prescribed anti-nausea medications given to patients during or after an operation could increase their risk of developing an irregular heartbeat, new research has found.
EuroHeartCare is the official annual meeting of the Council on Cardiovascular Nursing and Allied Professions (CCNAP) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). The 2015 meeting is held 14 to 15 June in Dubrovnik, Croatia, in collaboration with the Croatian Association of Cardiology Nurses.
Newly released images revealing the ‘bicycle spoke’ structure of a heart cell may hold key clues to reducing damage from a heart attack.
Some athletes who take part in endurance exercise such as marathon running, endurance triathlons or alpine cycling can develop irregularities in their heartbeats that can, occasionally, lead to their sudden death. Evidence published in the European Heart Journal by Professor La Gerche and colleagues has shown that doctors who try to detect these arrhythmias by focusing on the left ventricle of…
The tremendous progress of ultrahigh field magnetic resonance (UHF-MR) is a powerful motivator to transfer the lessons learned from basic research into the clinic. These efforts are fueled by the quest for advancing the capabilities of biomedical and diagnostic MRI, today. With this in mind momentum is gathering for broader clinical studies and applications. Realizing these opportunities, MAGMA -…
Abbott's i-STAT® 1 Wireless System is now available for use in hospitals, emergency rooms, physicians' offices and other health care environments in Europe and regions that recognize CE Mark. A portable, handheld blood analyzer, the i-STAT® uses two to three drops of a person's blood to perform common tests right at the bedside. By providing and transmitting test results within minutes to a…
Genetically engineered fibers of the protein spidroin, which is the construction material for spider webs, has proven to be a perfect substrate for cultivating heart tissue cells, MIPT researchers found. They discuss their findings in an article that has recently come out in the journal PLOS ONE.
In the late 1990s, management consultant Julia K Kuark and Swiss communication consultant Hans Ulrich Locher coined the term ‘TopSharing’ – as in job-sharing but, in this case, to describe splitting a senior management role. In Germany, Dr Ulrike Ley, who coaches female doctors, considers the TopSharing model, expanded over a decade by Kuark, is a valid management model for hospitals.…
Many NHS hospitals in the United Kingdom have established Rapid Access Chest Pain Clinics (RACPC) to work in tandem with them in offering primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI) – the gold standard treatment for heart attacks – 24 hours a day. Report: Mark Nicholls
In the future, TAVIs can only be carried out in German hospitals with cardiac surgery departments and cardiac wards, as decided by the German Government’s Expert Panel on Health (G-BA) last January. An interim arrangement in force until 2016 is anticipated for Heart Centres that currently carry out the TAVI procedure without cardiac surgery departments on site. The Federal Ministry of Health is…
The German care system for patients with acute and unspecific chest pain is unique in Europe. The closely knit and countrywide network of accredited Chest Pain Units (CPUs) ensures fast and targeted diagnosis of acute cardiac events. The German CPUs may soon serve as a blueprint for other European countries. The German Cardiac Society (DGK) has already accredited the first institutions – others…
A research paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) today confirms earlier findings that a procedure called endovascular therapy (ET) for ischemic stroke is the best treatment option for many patients by reducing the incidents of disability. This is the fourth research paper published this year that confirms the efficacy of the treatment.
The ageing of society needs new, more cost-effective solutions to improve the life quality of patients and cut the burden that is placed on the social welfare system. In modern western societies the fitting of pacemakers and implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) is growing rapidly.
The importance of cardiac imaging is increasing, but nuclear medicine procedures are by no means obsolete, observes Okan Ekinci, during our EH interview with the Siemens Vice President for Healthcare Consulting & Clinical Affairs about the latest innovations for cardiology.
Working with lab animals and human heart cells, scientists from Johns Hopkins and other institutions have identified what they describe as "the long-sought culprit" in the mystery behind a cell-signaling breakdown that triggers heart failure.
Seeing a substantially increasing importance of the cardiac MRI procedure, cardiologists have developed a specialist cardiac MRI training programme for their colleagues.
A British Society of Cardiac Imaging (BSCI) survey has confirmed that Toshiba’s Aquilion One scanner not only delivers exceptionally low radiation doses for cardiac CT, but also widens the scope of diagnostics in Cardiac CT because even patients with conditions eliminating them from a CT exam before this machine arrived can now be scanned.
In the year of Shimadzu’s 140th anniversary, new systems continue the company’s tradition in diagnostic imaging providing innovative technologies and industry firsts.
Imec, Medtronic, Ghent University and their project partners today announced the launch of the CARDIS project. Together they will develop and validate an early-stage cardio vascular disease detection platform using integrated silicon photonics.
Twitter has broken news stories, launched and ended careers, started social movements and toppled governments, all by being an easy, direct and immediate way for people to share what's on their minds. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have now shown that the social media platform has another use: Twitter can serve as a dashboard indicator of a community's psychological well being…
Carestream scientist Dr Samuel Richard will present a scientific paper documenting the impact of advanced imaging technologies on lung nodule conspicuity at the 2015 European Congress of Radiology (ECR).