May 15, 2021
The estimated 1-year rate of ischemic stroke after implantation of the Watchman left atrial appendage (LAA) closure device (Boston Scientific) was 1.53% in its first few years of commercial use in the United States, which encompassed a relatively high-risk population of patients with atrial fibrillation (AF), registry data show.
That’s substantially lower than would be expected in a cohort of patients with a similar thromboembolic risk based on CHA
2DS
2-VASc score who are not taking oral anticoagulation (6.64%), Matthew Price, MD (Scripps Clinic, La Jolla, CA), reported Saturday during the virtual American College of Cardiology (ACC) 2021 Scientific Session.
The low thromboembolic event rate observed in the study, which used information from the ACC’s National Cardiovascular Data Registry (NCDR) LAAO Registry, “supports the early-to-midterm clinical effectiveness of transcatheter LAAO as it is being currently utilized in the United States,” Price said.
February 08, 2021
Healed myocardial infarction is common among people who suffer sudden death, far outnumbering acute MI, Norwegian autopsy data show. This distribution pattern is most apparent in men.
“It was not a surprise for us that myocardial infarcts explained a large proportion of sudden and unexpected deaths [43%], but it was a surprise that the proportion of healed infarcts (75% to 80%) was much higher than acute ones both in men and women,” lead author Bjørn O. Mæhle, MD, PhD (Gade Laboratory for Pathology, University of Bergen, Norway), writing on behalf of the team, told TCTMD via email.
Sumeet S. Chugh, MD (Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai, Los Angeles, CA), said the study adds incremental support to what’s known about the causes of cardiac arrest and sudden death. “It’s good to get autopsy data,” he agreed.