The first randomized study to compare general versus local anesthesia during transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) in patients with intermediate to high surgical risk found local anesthesia to be both safe and effective. In addition, the study found that a current generation balloon-expandable valve had similar outcomes to a current generation self-expanding one.

Patients with heart failure and secondary mitral regurgitation (MR) who remained symptomatic despite maximally tolerated medical therapy demonstrated reduced rates of hospitalizations and death after being treated with the transcatheter MitraClip device. Patients in the randomized COAPT trial also showed improved quality-of-life and functional capacity.

Positive 12-month data from the late-breaking IMPERIAL trial was presented at the 2018 Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) conference. This is the first head-to-head drug-eluting stent trial in the superficial femoral artery (SFA). Results were also presented at the annual Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiological Society of Europe (CIRSE) congress in Lisbon, Portugal. The clinical findings will be published in The Lancet.

Five-month-old Jack Palmer is home with his family in Kansas City after undergoing an extremely rare heart-lung transplant at St. Louis Children’s and Washington University Heart Center in May. At five months of age, Jack was the youngest patient to undergo this surgery successfully in more than a decade.