Participating in telemedicine for ischemic stroke care could modestly lower a hospital’s rate of tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA)-related complications and in-hospital mortality, researchers reported in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.

Research published in Stroke Jan. 10 suggests clinicians overestimate the severity of intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) and underestimate the severity of acute ischemic stroke (AIS), resulting in a bias that could influence patients’ outcomes and treatment plans.

Chronic exposure to secondhand smoke in common settings like cars, homes and casinos may increase a person’s susceptibility to cardiac alternans, a precursor to ventricular arrhythmias, according to an animal study published in Environmental Health Perspectives.

About one-quarter of adults in the world will experience a stroke in their lifetime, according to new estimates from the Global Burden of Disease Study published online Dec. 20 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

About 1 in 6 patients with newly diagnosed atrial fibrillation (AFib) who are considered at low risk of stroke advance to a higher risk category within one year, according to a registry study published in the Jan. 1 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine.

The FDA is requiring all manufacturers of fluoroquinolones—a popular class of antibiotics—to warn about the risk of aortic aneurysm and dissection associated with the drugs in their prescribing information and patient medication guides.

Hospitals participating in a quality improvement program were 7.3 times more likely to administer IV alteplase within one hour of a stroke patient’s arrival in 2017 versus 2008, according to a study published Dec. 17 in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.

Regardless of a woman’s smoking status, her BMI or whether she has any cardiovascular comorbidities, giving birth to at least one child raises her risk of developing heart disease or stroke by 16 percent, according to research out of Tongji Medical College in Wuhan, China.