The FDA is looking into the signal of increased late mortality associated with paclitaxel-coated balloons and stents that was observed in a recent meta-analysis of patients treated for femoropopliteal artery disease.

Older age, smoking and a higher body mass index (BMI) were consistently associated with a heightened risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE) in an analysis of 1.1 million individuals published in JAMA Cardiology.

Long-term sufferers of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are at a higher risk for circulatory and metabolic diseases, especially if they’re men, according to research out of Siena, Italy.

Executives from Medtronic and Boston Scientific stood behind their companies’ paclitaxel-coated medical devices after a meta-analysis published in the Journal of the American Heart Association in December linked balloons and stents covered with the material to a significantly increased risk of death at two and five years of follow-up.

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.