A less invasive test commonly used to diagnose coronary disease also may be used to detect one of the leading causes of heart failure, say researchers at the Medical College of Georgia.

A team of London scientists have taken a major step in making the use of artificial veins and arteries in coronary bypass grafts a reality. In a study published in the June 2008 print issue of The FASEB Journal, researchers describe how they developed this artificial graft tissue by combining man-made materials with human cells to make it elastic and durable and so it can attach to host tissue.

A significant number of patients who suffer a heart attack never have any warning signs. For many of these individuals, the source of the problem is noncalcified plaque, a buildup of soft deposits embedded deep within the walls of the heart’s arteries, undetectable by angiography or cardiac stress tests – and prone to rupture without warning.

Study led by Gregg W. Stone, professor of medicine at Columbia University Medical Center/NewYork-Presbyterian and chairman of Cardiovascular Research Foundation, has shown that heart attack patients who were administered direct thrombin inhibitor bivalirudin during primary angioplasty had reduced rate of adverse clinical events, lower rate of major bleeding, and lower mortality rate than those who were treated with regimen of heparin and glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibitors (GPI).

Researchers at the University of North Texas Health Science Center, Fort Worth, Texas have demonstrated that, contrary to prevailing dogma, hypoxia can be remarkably beneficial to the heart. These discoveries, to be reported in the June 2008 issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine, may lead to a new paradigm to protect hearts of patients at risk of coronary disease.

A research study has found that a simple blood test may indicate whether post-menopausal hormone therapies present an elevated risk of a heart attack.

The anti-obesity medication rimonabant showed mixed results in slowing progression of coronary artery disease in patients with abdominal obesity and pre-existing coronary disease, according to a new study in the April 2 issue of JAMA. The study is being released early online April 1 to coincide with its presentation at the annual conference of the American College of Cardiology.