Heart & Lungs

A VICTORIA substudy evaluated inflammatory biomarkers and ECG repolarization measures in heart failure with reduced ejection fraction, finding that hsCRP retained an association with sudden cardiac death after multivariable adjustment while JTc, rather than QTc, was associated with the outcome.

A nationwide retrospective analysis of U.S. CKD hospitalizations reported progressively higher adjusted inpatient mortality odds with greater acute hemodynamic and vascular stressor burden.

A Swedish registry study developed a competing-risk machine-learning model after first hospitalisation for newly diagnosed heart failure, but reported limited accuracy for individual cardiac-arrest prediction. pmid:42350023

A mouse acute-lung-injury study linked peak surfactant dysfunction with phosphatidylglycerol depletion and secretory phospholipase A2 activity; an inhibitor improved measured surfactant outcomes within that model.

A single-center Ghanaian chart review found significant arrhythmias in 45.1% of adults with palpitations selected for 18–24-hour Holter ECG monitoring.

A prospective Brazilian cohort found that two commonly used preoperative cardiac risk scores had poor discrimination for death and combined in-hospital cardiovascular outcomes in elective non-cardiac surgery, while cardiologist judgment performed slightly better.

An exploratory prospective emergency-department study of 88 adults with imaging-confirmed acute pulmonary embolism assessed whether bedside transthoracic echocardiography and two biomarkers were associated with 30-day mortality and right-ventricular dysfunction.

A two-case report illustrates how paroxysmal atrial tachycardia with atrioventricular block was linked to suspected reversible triggers and why ECG interpretation mattered in those cases.

A research explainer of a propensity-score-matched study comparing SGLT2 inhibitors and DPP-4 inhibitors among adults aged 80 years or older with type 2 diabetes.

A retrospective Vietnamese cohort found that admission NT-proBNP discriminated 1-year mortality more strongly than AHEAD score categories among adults hospitalized with acute heart failure.

A research explainer of a Saudi Arabian retrospective cohort that tracked proteinuria, eGFR, and potassium after finerenone initiation in adults with diabetic kidney disease.

A secondary analysis of the RICCADSA cohort found that an HFpEF-like phenotype was common among revascularized coronary artery disease participants with preserved ejection fraction. Age and obesity were robust adjusted correlates, while sleep-apnea severity findings changed when body mass index was omitted from models.

A retrospective matched study found that selective GLP-1RA use was associated with lower three-year rates of several cardiovascular and pulmonary outcomes among adults with obesity and obstructive sleep apnea; it does not establish causation.

A small Japanese pilot study describes EUS-guided gallbladder drainage with lumen-apposing metal stents in extremely elderly, frail people judged unsuitable for surgery. The study reports high procedural success but is too limited to establish comparative safety or effectiveness.

A single-patient report describes infantile-onset mitochondrial encephalomyopathy and a changing cardiomyopathy phenotype in a female child with a de novo heterozygous AIFM1 variant.

A prospective observational study examined whether a messaging-based previsit questionnaire could transfer structured patient-generated information into a cardiology clinic’s electronic medical record and was associated with more complete documentation.

Two observational cohorts linked lower CT muscle attenuation with cardiovascular outcomes in very different settings: incident atrial fibrillation and heart failure in a community cohort, and mortality after STEMI in a single-center PCI cohort. The convergence supports myosteatosis as a research signal, not a validated clinical tool.

Two observational studies expose different gaps in heart-failure research: an ECG-derived signal weakened after adjustment, while a dashboard clinic improved medication-process scores without testing clinical outcomes.

Two retrospective studies found that CRT outcomes varied with both baseline electrical activation and whether implantation occurred during a heart-failure hospitalization. The findings identify distinct risk contexts, not causal effects or validated selection rules.

Two July studies examined different heart-failure signals: a metabolic vulnerability score that was stable over one year in a small HFpEF sample, and an ECG timing measure associated with outcomes after cardiac resynchronization therapy before statistical adjustment weakened the finding.

Two current studies examine proteolysis from different directions in heart failure: one tests broad cysteine-protease inhibition in cardiac cell and tissue models, while the other evaluates a proteolytic fragment as a prognostic biomarker in acute heart failure. Their findings are complementary but do not establish a shared pathway or clinical use.

Two current retrospective studies found prognostic signals in baseline electrical, structural, and thrombotic measurements from advanced heart-failure cohorts. The findings are hypothesis-generating, not validated tools for predicting an individual's outcome.

Two current studies test different requirements for heart-failure risk scores: whether a metabolic score stays stable over time and whether proteomic scores retain prognostic information across study designs. Both report encouraging signals, but neither establishes clinical utility.

Two exploratory observational studies found that bedside imaging captured different layers of acute respiratory failure: alveolar filling and architecture in ventilated ICU patients, and short-term pleural-motion changes in emergency-department patients. The signals are promising for measurement research but are not validated outcome predictors.

The SPRINT trial found that targeting a systolic blood pressure below 120 mm Hg, versus below 140, cut cardiovascular events in high-risk adults without diabetes.

The National Lung Screening Trial found that screening high-risk smokers with low-dose CT reduced lung-cancer deaths compared with chest X-ray.

A landmark trial found that ventilating injured lungs with smaller breaths, not larger ones, improved survival in ARDS — reshaping critical care and revealing how ventilators can both help and harm.

In the PROSEVA trial, placing severe-ARDS patients face-down for long daily sessions improved survival — a low-tech maneuver with a large effect.