Impact of Climate Change on Cardiovascular Health.

Purpose Of Review: Climate change is profoundly impacting cardiovascular disease through rising temperatures, more extreme weather events, and worsening air pollution. This review analyzes how these factors affect cardiovascular health.

Recent Findings: Extreme heat and cold cause physiological changes, including increasing the risk of blood clots, faster heart rates, and inflammation.

Impact of Palliative Care on Interhospital Transfers to the Intensive Care Unit.

Community hospitals will often transfer their most complex, critically ill patients to intensive care units (ICUs) of tertiary care centers for specialized, comprehensive care. This population of patients has high rates of morbidity and mortality. Palliative care involvement in critically ill patients has been demonstrated to reduce over-utilization of resources and hospital length of stays.

Safety and effects of SGLT-2 inhibitor use among LVAD patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus.

SGLT-2 inhibitors have been shown to confer reduced risk of adverse cardiovascular events in patients with heart failure, and have also been studied preliminarily among heart transplant patients, with overall positive findings. Use of SGLT-2 inhibitors among patients with durable mechanical circulatory support has not been studied. Here we present our results from a combined retrospective cohort of LVAD patients on SGLT-2 inhibitors at two major academic centers, which showed a good safety profile but prompted questions for further investigation.

Association of Reduced Hospitalizations and Mortality Rates Among COVID-19-Vaccinated Patients With Heart Failure.

Background: Patients with heart failure (HF) are at high risk for adverse outcomes when they have COVID-19. Reports of COVID-19 vaccine-related cardiac complications may contribute to vaccine hesitancy in patients with HF.

Methods: To analyze the impact of COVID-19 vaccine status on clinical outcomes in patients with HF, we conducted a retrospective cohort study of the association of COVID-19 vaccination status with hospitalizations, intensive care unit admission and mortality after adjustment for covariates.

Comorbidity Burden and Adverse Outcomes After Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement.

Background Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) has become the preferred treatment for symptomatic patients with aortic stenosis and elevated procedural risk. Many deaths following TAVR are because of noncardiac causes and comorbid disease burden may be a major determinant of postprocedure outcomes. The prevalence of comorbid conditions and associations with outcomes after TAVR has not been studied.

Electric cigarette-related lung injury and cardiovascular insult.

The cardiovascular effects of electronic cigarette use are unknown. Here we present a case describing a young, previously healthy patient without prior cardiopulmonary comorbidities who developed severe, acute cardiac dysfunction in the setting of e-cigarette use, in addition to the more commonly encountered respiratory symptoms. While pulmonary manifestations are characteristic of e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury (EVALI), the acute and reversible cardiomyopathy seen here has not been previously described in association with either EVALI or e-cigarette use.

Recent temporal trends in hospital costs for non-surgical patients receiving implantable cardioverter defibrillators.

Purpose: Many studies have analyzed the cost-effectiveness of implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs), but hospital costs have not been as thoroughly reported. This study reviewed the associated hospital costs for non-surgical patients who received ICDs from 2015 to 2019.

Methods: We performed a retrospective single-center analysis of patients who received an ICD between 2015 and 2019.

Sarcoidosis-associated hypercalcemia potentiating calcific uremic arteriolopathy in a patient with a left ventricular assist device.

Calcific uremic arteriolopathy is a rare, life-threatening syndrome of vascular calcification characterized by occlusion of microvessels that results in extremely painful skin necrosis. We present a case of sarcoidosis-associated hypercalcemia potentiating calcific uremic arteriolopathy in a patient with a left ventricular assist device. The patient's calcific uremic arteriolopathy was successfully treated with sodium thiosulfate.

Noninvasive Assessment of Right Ventricular Function in Patients with Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension and Left Ventricular Assist Device.

Purpose Of Review: Right ventricular (RV) failure in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and left ventricular assist device (LVAD) is associated with increased hospitalizations, worsening functional class, and poor survival. Accurate RV function assessment is essential in diagnosing RV failure, guiding therapies, and determining prognosis. Noninvasive imaging techniques provide fast and reliable quantification of RV morphology and function.

A Case of Bartonella Quintana Culture-Negative Endocarditis.

BACKGROUND Culture-negative Bartonella quintana endocarditis is challenging to diagnose and is associated with high mortality rates. Diagnostic confirmation of Bartonella quintana infection requires specialized assays, as identifying Bartonella henselae endocarditis by serology can be difficult due to the high rate of serological cross-reactivity. This is a case report of culture-negative Bartonella quintana endocarditis that was diagnosed with epidemiologic data, histology, and nucleic acid amplification testing.

Successful Management of Cryptococcal Meningitis and Bone Marrow Infiltration in a Young HIV/AIDS Patient: A Case Report and Review of the Literature.

Bone marrow cryptococcosis has been rarely reported in the literature, and there are no established treatment guidelines specific to this AIDS-related complication. The recommended treatment for AIDS-related invasive fungal treatments include amphotericin B and flucytosine which are associated with an array of complications making optimal treatment recommendations difficult. This case presentation represents an example of a patient with newly diagnosed AIDS and bone marrow cryptococcosis, which was successfully managed with an antifungal regimen adjusted to her comorbidities.

Head-neck taper corrosion following total hip arthroplasty with Stryker Meridian stem.

Background: Taper corrosion at the modular junctions of total hip arthroplasty (THA) femoral stems are known to cause locally destructive adverse local tissue reaction (ALTR). However, the implants at risk remain to be fully elucidated.

Case Review: We report the case of a 76-year-old woman with hip pain, abductor weakness, and sciatic nerve symptoms 2 years following metal-on-polyethylene THA.

Prevalence and location of bone bruises associated with anterior cruciate ligament injury and implications for mechanism of injury: a systematic review.

Background: Bone bruising is commonly observed on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) after non-contact anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury.

Objectives: The primary objective of this study was to determine if the location and prevalence of tibial and femoral bone bruises after ACL injury can be explained by specific injury mechanism(s). The secondary objective was to determine whether the bone-bruise literature supports sex-specific injury mechanism(s).