Among the many factors involved in deciding how to treat coronary artery disease, physicians must evaluate overall outcomes and the potential for complications. Some studies have found that cognitive decline and neurologic complications, such as stroke, have been associated with coronary artery bypass surgery.

Minimally invasive heart bypass surgery using a DaVinci robot means a shorter hospital stay and faster recovery for patients, as well as fewer complications and a better chance that the new bypass vessels will stay open.

Researchers at Pulmonary Associates today announced the start of the EASE (Exhale Airway Stents for Emphysema) Trial, an international, multi-center clinical trial to explore an investigational treatment that may offer a new, minimally invasive option for those suffering with advanced widespread emphysema.

New York Methodist Hospital today announced the start of the EASE (Exhale Airway Stents for Emphysema) Trial, an international, multi-center clinical trial to explore an investigational treatment that may offer a significant new, minimally-invasive option for those suffering with advanced widespread emphysema.

An estimated one in 20 patients undergoing a common operation to boost blood supply to the heart and to ward off repeat heart attacks may do better if their surgeons also remold the heart to a near normal size, by cutting and suturing together stretched muscle and scar tissue resulting from the initial attack, according to cardiac surgeons at Johns Hopkins.

Broncus Technologies, Inc., a medical device company investigating the airway bypass procedure for the treatment of emphysema, today announced that the results of its open-label Exhale® Drug-Eluting Stent feasibility study have been published in the October issue of the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery.

New research published in the July issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons shows that robotic telerounding may significantly reduce the length-of-stay of patients undergoing laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery if used to supplement standard postoperative visits, or “rounds”, made by surgeons.

Coronary artery bypass surgery has been the preferred treatment for patients with a blockage in the left main coronary artery, the conduit that supplies blood to about two-thirds of the heart. However, in recent years this has been challenged by stent placement in this critical artery.

Drug-eluting stent therapy and bypass surgery for coronary artery disease have about the same risk for a major cardiac event within 30 days after the procedures, researchers reported at the American Heart Association's 8th Annual Conference on Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology.

A newly developed group of plastics that release nitric oxide (NO) - a molecule that influences body functions ranging from sexual function to communication among nerves - may have broad uses in medicine, scientists are reporting in an article scheduled for the April 4 issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, a weekly publication.