Patients whose prescription for PCSK9 inhibitors (proprotein convertase subtilisin kexin type 9 inhibitors) are either unfilled or rejected by insurance companies have a higher rate of cardiovascular events than those whose prescriptions are paid for. Kelly D Myers (The FH Foundation, Pasadena, USA), et al also found that high co-payments may make patients less likely to fill prescriptions, even when insurers approve them, and that prescriptions written for women, blacks and Hispanics were more likely to be rejected by companies. The study was published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.

Medtronic has entered into a partnership agreement with Viz.ai to accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence software for stroke prevention and treatment in US centres. A press release from Medtronic announced the collaboration, describing Viz.ai as “the emerging leader in applied artificial intelligence in stroke care”.

Edwards Lifesciences has announced it has made the “difficult decision” to discontinue its self-expanding transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) device Centera. The company says the resources required to “optimise deliverability as well as expanding the indications to match the Sapien 3 valve are significant”. Therefore, Edwards Lifesciences is to focus its resources on its Sapien 3 range of TAVI devices.

Vascular malformations have perplexed a plethora of physicians from diverse specialties for decades, writes Jocelyn Brookes. The British Society of Interventional Radiology (BSIR) has formed a Vascular Anomalies Special Interest Group (VASIG), which met last year for a study day to discuss treatment approaches and outcome measurements. This year, the group welcomes interested specialists to The Royal Free Hospital, London, on 5 December to continue the conversation.

Edwards Lifesciences has issued an urgent safety notice for the latest generation of its Sapien device, Sapien 3 Ultra, after it received reports of “burst balloons, which have resulted in significant difficulty retrieving the Sapien 3 Ultra delivery system into the sheath and withdrawing the system from the patient”. The safety notice comes less than a month after the company issued a safety notice for its self-expanding Centera device(related to the problems with tracking and manipulating the system).

Five-year results suggest that surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR) is associated with lower rates of mortality and major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular events (MACCE) than transfemoral transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVI) performed using first-generation devices in low- and intermediate-risk patients with severe aortic stenosis.

Cardiac Dimensions has announced in a press release that its Carillon Mitral Contour System has now been implanted in 1,000 patients in the USA, Europe, Australia, Turkey, and the Middle East. The Carillon System is a right-heart transcatheter mitral valve repair (TMVr) device designed to treat the primary cause of functional mitral regurgitation (FMR) in patients with MR grades 2+, 3+ and 4+. The 1,000th system was implanted during a live case at CSI Frankfurt 2019.

When new rules capped training hours for medical residents at 80 hours per week in 2003, critics worried that the change would leave physicians-in-training unprepared for the challenges of independent practice. New research, published today in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and led by scientists in the Department of Health Care Policy in the Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical School, shows that these warnings were largely unjustified.

Gore has announced the first US implant of its Gore TAG conformable thoracic stent graft with ACTIVE CONTROL system. The successful procedure was performed by William Jordan, chief of the Division of Vascular Surgery and Bradley Leshnower, cardiothoracic surgeon, at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, USA. This first case follows the recent US Food and Drug Administration approval for this new device.

After receiving reports of difficulty tracking and manipulating the Centera transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) system around the aortic arch, Edwards Lifesciences has issued an urgent safety notice. The notice states that these difficulties have “resulted in vascular injury including aortic dissection and death during early cases”.

Data from the MeRes-1 and MeRes-1 Extend clinical trials, released at EuroPCR 2019 (20–24 May, Paris, France), demonstrate sustained efficacy and safety for the recently CE-approved MeRes100 (Meril) bioresorbable scaffold (BRS).

PASCAL’s (Edwards Lifesciences) safety and efficacy may rival that of MitraClip (Abbott) for the treatment of mitral regurgitation (MR), according to data published in JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions.