Cardiology

Jeff Meeusen, Ph.D., Co-Director of Cardiovascular Laboratory Medicine, recently had his paper, “Plasma Ceramides—A Novel Predictor of Major Adverse Cardiovascular Events after Coronary Angiography” accepted by the peer-reviewed journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology (ATVB), part of the American Heart Association’s group of journals.

In this month’s “Hot Topic,” Robin Patel, M.D., will review the laboratory methods used to diagnose infectious endocarditis. Specifically, she’ll discuss the role of blood cultures, nucleic acid amplification tests, histopathology, and recently, broad-range bacterial sequencing, and how these methods can assist in the diagnosis of this disease.

At the annual meeting of the Association for Molecular Pathology this past November, Joseph Maleszewski, M.D., a cardiovascular pathologist and Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, presented about phenotypes and genotypes in the understanding and diagnosis of cardiovascular disease. He spoke with CAP Today further about gene testing in cardiomyopathy analysis.

This week’s Research Roundup highlights cardiovascular concerns in BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers.

Jeff Meeusen, Ph.D., Co-Director of Cardiovascular Laboratory Medicine in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, provides a clinical update on ceramides.

With more than 70,000 uses worldwide and policy endorsements for its use (JAMA Article), the Mayo Clinic Statin Choice Decision-Aid tool is helping patients and their clinicians have meaningful conversations about whether or not to use statins to reduce cardiovascular risk.

High-sensitivity cardiac troponin levels are strongly associated with the risk for incident heart failure. Allan Jaffe, M.D., Consultant and Chair of Mayo Clinic’s Division of Clinical Core Laboratory Services, with a joint appointment in the Division of Cardiovascular Diseases, weighs in on the topic.

This week’s Research Roundup highlights how cardiac troponin is released from injured myocardium.

Allan Jaffe, M.D., Consultant and Chair of Mayo Clinic’s Division of Clinical Core Laboratory Services, with a joint appointment in the Division of Cardiovascular Diseases, spoke with CAP Today about what a new higher-sensitivity cardiac troponin assay means from a pathology and cardiology perspective.

This week’s Research Roundup highlights global pulmonary vascular remodeling in pulmonary hypertension associated with heart failure and preserved or reduced ejection fraction.

Researchers from Mayo Clinic and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine published an article in "JAMA Internal Medicine" outlining the elimination from clinical practice of a popular test for diagnosing heart attacks.

Sudden cardiac death and episodes of fainting and seizures from long QT syndrome are significantly lower than previously thought when patients are diagnosed and treated at a specialty center dedicated to the treatment of genetic heart rhythm diseases, according to Mayo Clinic research published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

European Heart Journal recently highlighted Mayo Clinic's new blood test that may predict cardiovascular events in patients with or without coronary artery disease.