Heart Defect News and Research

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Johns Hopkins Hospital's new home to open on May 1

The Johns Hopkins Hospital's new home, set to open on May 1, will redefine the very essence of the hospital experience, and cutting-edge technology designed to improve care, streamline workflow and encourage efficiencies will play a central role.

31 Mar 2012

UTHealth, PLx Pharma to test phosphatidylcholine-enriched version of indomethacin in PDA model

PLx Pharma Inc, a Houston-based pharmaceutical company developing a medical discovery made at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) Medical School, has been awarded $565,449 for the first year of a potential two-year $1,118,398 grant to conduct research designed to enhance a treatment for premature babies with a common congenital heart defect.

29 Mar 2012

UAB first hospital in Alabama to offer Melody Valve replacement

In many ways Dylan Fields is your typical 15-year-old boy. He loves sports, and plays baseball and soccer for his school, Tallassee High, in Central Alabama. What's not typical about Dylan is his heart defect and, now, the procedure used to repair his heart.

6 Mar 2012

Experts to discuss current treatments for children with heart disease at Cardiology 2012

An international group of almost 1000 medical experts gathers this week to discuss the most current treatments for children with heart disease. Affecting about a million children born each year throughout the world, congenital heart disease is the most common birth defect. In its severe forms, it is also the leading cause of death from birth defects in infants.

23 Feb 2012

U-M Cardiovascular Center now offers Edwards aortic valve replacement

As the population ages, more Americans will be susceptible to aortic stenosis, but not all patients can tolerate surgery to treat it. Select U.S. hospitals are now performing minimally invasive procedures called transcatheter aortic valve replacement, or TAVR, to replace a patient's diseased aortic valve without heart bypass or open heart surgery.

From Medtronic 23 Feb 2012

Researchers derive vessel-forming stem cells from amniotic fluid

Researchers at Rice University and Texas Children's Hospital have turned stem cells from amniotic fluid into cells that form blood vessels. Their success offers hope that such stem cells may be used to grow tissue patches to repair infant hearts.

7 Feb 2012

St. Jude Medical meets stopping rule in RESPECT clinical trial, closes patient enrollment

St. Jude Medical, Inc., a global medical device company, today announced that it has met a stopping rule in its RESPECT clinical trial - triggered by reaching the protocol-required number of primary events in the trial, defined as stroke and all-cause mortality - and is closing patient enrollment.

4 Jan 2012

FDA nod for pediatric Berlin heart

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the Berlin Heart for pediatric patients waiting for heart transplants. The ventricular assist device is similar to the one worn by former Vice President Dick Cheney but scaled down in size for children and babies.

19 Dec 2011

MHI cardiologists perform first clinical procedure in Canada using MitraClip system

The interventional cardiology team at the Montreal Heart Institute (MHI) recently conducted the first clinical procedure in Canada using the MitraClip system, which is designed to treat patients suffering from mitral valve failure, a very common heart defect that affects an estimated 1 out 5 people to various extents starting at the age of 55.

16 Dec 2011

Move Day at U-M hospitals goes smoothly

Sunday's move from the now former U-M C.S. Mott Children's Hospital, the Von Voigtlander Women's Hospital and the Adult Bone Marrow Transplant Unit to the new facility began at 7:02 a.m. Sunday with a tiny patient - a baby moving from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

6 Dec 2011

Healthy fetus aborted by mistake

The Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne has mounted an investigation into the accidental termination of a healthy 32-week-old fetus.

24 Nov 2011

Simple test can save lives of infants with undiagnosed critical heart defects

The US Secretary of Health recently supported a recommendation that all babies born in the US are to be screened for critical heart defects, before leaving hospital. Behind this decision is a study from the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, and the West Götaland Region's maternity units in Sweden which shows that a simple test can save the lives of newborns with these heart defects.

11 Oct 2011

Memphis operation successfully separates twins joined at the spine

Joshua and Jacob Spates, all of seven months old spent their initial months outside the womb as conjoined twins. Now they are recovering in the pediatric intensive care unit of a Memphis hospital after a successful 13-hour surgery to separate them.

15 Sep 2011

Study determines incidence of aortic complications in BAV and general population

While the incidence of the life-threatening condition of aortic dissection is significantly higher than in the general population, it remains low among patients with the congenital heart defect, bicuspid aortic valve; however, the incidence of aortic aneurysms is significantly high, according to a study in the September 14 issue of JAMA.

14 Sep 2011

Babies, toddlers with congenital heart disease more likely to have harmful toxins after surgery

Babies and toddlers with congenital heart disease are at an increased risk of having harmful toxins in their blood, particularly following surgery, according to research by a team at Imperial College London.

26 Aug 2011

Natural recycling system, PPAR agonists can help protect children with heart defects

Children born with heart defects that pummel their lungs with up to three times the normal blood volume quickly find their lungs in jeopardy as well.

28 Jul 2011

ECG results for young athletes prone to misinterpretation

Pediatric cardiologists are prone to misinterpreting electrocardiograms when using the results to determine whether young athletes have heart defects that could make exercising perilous, according to a new study from the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. This is the first research to examine the acumen of pediatric cardiologists from several health-care institutions in using ECGs to detect rare heart conditions associated with sudden cardiac death.

15 Jul 2011

bioMD changes name to Allied Healthcare Group

bioMD Limited (ASX: BOD) today announced a change of corporate name to reflect the merger with Allied Medical Ltd earlier this month. The new Company will be called Allied Healthcare Group Ltd and trade under the ASX code AHZ.

28 Jun 2011

Scientists uncover gene responsible for Adams-Oliver Syndrome

Scientists at King's College London have, for the first time, uncovered a gene responsible for Adams-Oliver Syndrome, a condition which can cause birth defects of the heart, limbs, or blood vessels.

13 May 2011

Non-Hispanic black infants born with heart defects more likely to die within five years

Non-Hispanic black infants born with heart defects are more likely to die within the first five years of life than their non-Hispanic white and Hispanic peers. For certain types of congenital heart abnormalities, Hispanic children as well as non-Hispanic black children fare worse than non-Hispanic white children.

18 Apr 2011