Addition of Blood Pressure and Weight Transmissions to Standard Remote Monitoring of Implantable Defibrillators and its Association with Mortality and Rehospitalization.

Background: Among patients with implantable defibrillators (ICD), use of remote patient monitoring (RPM) is associated with lower risk of death and rehospitalization. Standard ICD RPM can be supplemented with weight and blood pressure data. It is not known whether standard RPM plus routine weight and blood pressure transmission (RPM+) is associated with better outcomes.

Traditional heart failure medications and sudden cardiac death prevention: a review.

Sudden cardiac death (SCD) is still a major public health issue with an estimated annual incidence ranging from 184,000 to > 400,000 per year. The ACC/AHA/ESC 2006 guidelines define SCD as "death from an unexpected circulatory arrest, usually due to a cardiac arrhythmia occurring within an hour of the onset of symptoms". A recent study of sudden cardiac death using multiple sources of ascertainment found that coronary artery disease was present in more than 50% of patients older than 35 years who died suddenly and underwent autopsy.

Epicardial Fat and Atrial Fibrillation: A Review.

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a progressive disorder that increases with age. Obesity is an important risk factor for AF. Pericardial fat is an active adipose tissue in close proximity to the heart and has been shown to be a risk factor for structural as well as coronary artery disease independent of body mass index.

Pericardial fat is independently associated with human atrial fibrillation.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between atrial fibrillation (AF) and pericardial fat.

Background: Pericardial fat is visceral adipose tissue that possesses inflammatory properties. Inflammation and obesity are associated with AF, but the relationship between AF and pericardial fat is unknown.

Gemella morbillorum prosthetic valve endocarditis.

The authors describe a case of prosthetic valve infective endocarditis (IE) caused by Gemella morbillorum (GM), a gram-positive coccus that grows slowly in culture and occasionally causes a subacute to chronic form of IE. To the author's knowledge, this is the third case of GM prosthetic valve IE to be reported. Subacute to chronic IE caused by slow-growing organisms can be subtle in presentation and should be suspected in patients who have prosthetic valves presenting with worsening heart failure.