A recently approved angina drug may also represent a powerful new treatment for a rare hereditary syndrome that places teens at risk for sudden cardiac death, according to research presented to today at the 57th Annual Scientific Sessions of the American College of Cardiology (ACC) in Chicago.

For accuracy's sake, medical professionals should use the same software for comparing and analyzing diagnostic heart images taken from different time periods and laboratories, a team of researchers has concluded.

Hormones produced by the heart eliminated human pancreatic cancer in more than three-quarters of the mice treated with the hormones and eliminated human breast cancer in two-thirds of the mice, according to researcher David Vesely, a doctor at the James A. Haley Veterans Hospital in Tampa and a professor at the University of South Florida (USF).

Patients with diabetes, cardiac problems, kidney disorders or high blood pressure could benefit from the development of new hologram technology. The new "smart" holograms, which can detect changes in, for example, blood-glucose levels, should make self-diagnosis much simpler, cheaper and more reliable, write Chris Lowe and Cynthia Larbey in February’s Physics World.

A report in the open access journal BioMedical Engineering OnLine refutes claims that portable music players, such as Apple's iPod, interfere with cardiac pacemakers.

A protein has been found that influences the response of the heart to a lack of oxygen and blood flow, such as occurs during a heart attack, a team of Yale School of Medicine researchers report today in Nature.

Older women heart patients benefit from educational programs as a supplement to clinical care to help significantly lower cardiac symptoms, lose weight and increase physical activity, a new study shows.

Another FDA-approved targeted cancer drug, sunitinib (SutentTM, Pfizer), may be associated with cardiac toxicity, report researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (Boston), and Thomas Jefferson University (Philadelphia).

Preliminary research suggests that use of the ACE inhibitor perindopril, along with a beta-blocker, may help reduce cardiac measures such as aortic stiffness and dilation that are associated with the cardiac complications of Marfan syndrome, according to an article in the October 3 issue of JAMA.

Large burns can trigger cardiac problems and enhanced inflammatory and hypermetabolic responses in patients, a study in the online open access journal Critical Care suggests. Effective treatments may need to focus on these multiple aspects.

The American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association have jointly released revised Guidelines for the Management of Patients with Unstable Angina (UA)/Non-ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction (NSTEMI).