Peripheral microvascular dysfunction is a hallmark feature of both heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) and preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) pathophysiology, due partly to impairments in nitric oxide signaling secondary to tetrahydrobiopterin (BH4) deficiency and oxidative stress.

Injection of contrast media for rapid measurement of contrast fractional flow reserve (cFFR) obviates the side effects and time requirements of adenosine fractional flow reserve (aFFR) and improves diagnostic performance relative to nonhyperemic pressure ratios. However, studies of cFFR have had variable delivery of contrast. We evaluated the diagnostic performance of cFFR using an automated contrast injector with a standardized volume and rate of delivery of contrast to the reference standard aFFR.

Despite major advances in recent years, the timely detection and prevention of incipient congestion in patients with chronic heart failure remains challenging. Most approaches are either invasive or require the acquisition of additional hardware. Leveraging voice analysis for the purposes of diagnosing, predicting risks, and telemonitoring clinical outcomes of patients with heart failure represents a promising, cost-effective, and convenient alternative compared with hitherto deployed methods. To expand this field, close collaboration of several disciplines of medicine and computer science is an obligatory requirement. The current review aims to lay out the state-of-the-art in this quickly advancing area of research. It elucidates the foundation for voice feature extraction, describes the prospective capabilities of this evolving technology, and outlines the challenges involved in identifying vocal biomarkers both in general and in the context of heart failure.

Nonischemic cardiomyopathies are frequently caused by genetic mutations in about 100 different genes. The cardiomyopathy-associated gene DES encodes the intermediate filament protein desmin, which is important for the structural integrity of the cardiomyocytes.

GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) agonists have been proven beneficial in reducing the risk of and injury associated with several cardiovascular diseases. The efficacy in cardiopulmonary bypass-assisted cardiac surgery is unknown. This trial aimed to investigate the efficacy of an infusion of the GLP-1 agonist exenatide during and after open-heart surgery in reducing the risk of death and major organ failure.

Despite over a century of clinical electrocardiographic studies showing that women exhibit a faster resting heart rate (HR), the mechanisms underlying sex differences in HR remain unresolved. Moreover, inappropriate sinus tachycardia primarily affects women, whereas men are at a higher risk for conduction block and atrial fibrillation. We hypothesized that the sexual dimorphism of genes responsible for sinoatrial node (SAN) pacemaking and signaling pathways may contribute to the sex differences in HR and susceptibility to arrhythmias.

Assessing the generalizability of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) to real-world patients remains challenging. We propose a multidimensional metric to quantify the representativeness of an RCT cohort in an electronic health record (EHR) population and estimate real-world effects based on individualized treatment effects observed in the RCT.

Patients with bicuspid aortic stenosis who receive transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) may require subsequent valve interventions in their lifetime; however, the feasibility of redo-TAVR in this population is uncertain. We aimed to assess redo-TAVR feasibility in bicuspid patients and develop a predictive virtual valve planning algorithm.