Adherence to several diet quality scores, including the Alternative Healthy Eating Index, Alternative Mediterranean Diet score, and Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertension, has been associated with lower risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), but little is known about how changes in these scores over time influence subsequent CVD risk.

Although transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) is an effective treatment for aortic stenosis, long-term mortality after TAVR remains high and challenging to predict. The Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire (KCCQ) is a health status measure, assessed directly from patients, that integrates 2 clinically relevant factors (symptoms and functional status) that may predict TAVR outcomes.

Transradial approach (TRA), when compared with transfemoral, improves the safety of percutaneous coronary procedures. Arterial axis variants are known to hinder the performance of transradial approach percutaneous coronary procedures. Data on the occurrence of arterial axis variants in the right and left arm arterial axes of individual patients are lacking.

Patients treated with bivalirudin in randomized clinical trials of percutaneous coronary intervention generally have less bleeding but more acute stent thrombosis (ST) than do patients treated with heparin, but differences have varied among trials.

The frequency, causes, and impact of myocardial infarction (MI) after successful percutaneous coronary intervention have not been well studied.

We aimed to compare the long-term clinical outcomes between fractional flow reserve (FFR)-guided and routine drug-eluting stent (DES) implantation in patients with an intermediate coronary stenosis.

Congenital heart defects are the most frequent malformations among newborns and a frequent cause of morbidity and mortality. Although genetic variation contributes to congenital heart defects, their precise molecular bases remain unknown in the majority of patients.

Two guidelines from the American College of Cardiology (ACC), the American Heart Association (AHA), and collaborating societies address the risk of aortic dissection in patients with bicuspid aortic valves and severe aortic enlargement: the "2010 ACCF/AHA/AATS/ACR/ASA/SCA/SCAI/SIR/STS/SVM Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Patients With Thoracic Aortic Disease" (Circulation. 2010;121:e266-e369) and the "2014 AHA/ACC Guideline for the Management of Patients With Valvular Heart Disease" (Circulation. 2014;129:e521-e643). However, the 2 guidelines differ with regard to the recommended threshold of aortic root or ascending aortic dilatation that would justify surgical intervention in patients with bicuspid aortic valves. The ACC and AHA therefore convened a subcommittee representing members of the 2 guideline writing committees to review the evidence, reach consensus, and draft a statement of clarification for both guidelines. This statement of clarification uses the ACC/AHA revised structure for delineating the Class of Recommendation and Level of Evidence to provide recommendations that replace those contained in Section 9.2.2.1 of the thoracic aortic disease guideline and Section 5.1.3 of the valvular heart disease guideline.

Although extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (E-CPR) can result in survival after failed conventional CPR (C-CPR), no large, systematic comparison of pediatric E-CPR and continued C-CPR has been reported.

Quadricuspid aortic valve (QAV) is a rare congenital cardiac defect. This study sought to determine QAV frequency in a large echocardiography database, to characterize associated cardiovascular abnormalities, and to describe long-term outcomes.

Candidates for cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) receive either a biventricular pacemaker or a biventricular pacemaker with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (CRT-D). Optimal device selection remains challenging because the benefit of implantable cardioverter-defibrillator therapy may not be uniform, particularly in patients at competing risk of nonsudden death.

β-Adrenergic receptors (βARs) play paradoxical roles in the heart. On one hand, βARs augment cardiac performance to fulfill the physiological demands, but on the other hand, prolonged activations of βARs exert deleterious effects that result in heart failure. The signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) plays a dynamic role in integrating multiple cytokine signaling pathways in a number of tissues. Altered activation of STAT3 has been observed in failing hearts in both human patients and animal models. Our objective is to determine the potential regulatory roles of STAT3 in cardiac βAR-mediated signaling and function.

Bioresorbable vascular scaffolds (BVS) represent promising new technology, but data on their long-term outcomes in ST-segment-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) setting are missing. The aim was to analyze 1-year clinical and computed tomographic angiographic outcomes after BVS implantation in STEMI.

High-quality cardiovascular imaging requires a structured process to ensure appropriate patient selection, accurate and reproducible data acquisition, and timely reporting which answers clinical questions and improves patient outcomes. Several guidelines provide frameworks to assess quality. This article reviews interventions to improve quality in cardiovascular imaging, including methods to reduce inappropriate testing, improve accuracy, reduce interobserver variability, and reduce diagnostic and reporting errors.

To develop a technique to noninvasively estimate stroke volume in real time during magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-guided procedures, based on induced magnetohydrodynamic voltages (VMHD) that occur in ECG recordings during MRI exams, leaving the MRI scanner free to perform other imaging tasks. Because of the relationship between blood flow (BF) and VMHD, we hypothesized that a method to obtain stroke volume could be derived from extracted VMHD vectors in the vectorcardiogram (VCG) frame of reference (VMHDVCG).