White women—but not black women—between the ages of 65 and 74 carried a lower risk of stroke than their male counterparts in a U.S. study, suggesting gender-specific protections against stroke vanish earlier among blacks.

Low-dose vaginal estrogen therapy—a treatment used to relieve genital and urinary discomfort in women during menopause—isn’t associated with an elevated risk of cardiovascular disease or cancer, researchers reported in Menopause Dec. 17.

Several professional societies collaborated to release appropriate use criteria for peripheral artery intervention (PAI), a field the authors acknowledged still has an emerging evidence base that is likely to change these recommendations in the future.

The FDA has granted premarket approval to Cardiva Medical’s vascular closure system for use during electrophysiology procedures such as cardiac ablation and left atrial appendage closure, the company announced Dec. 18.

Two trials designed to test the use of drug-eluting devices in patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD) were halted soon after a meta-analysis linked paclitaxel-coated balloons and stents to a significantly increased risk of death beyond one year post-implantation.

Kettering General Hospital in Northamptonshire, England, is now one of the few heart centers in the world using Shockwave Medical’s intravascular lithotripsy (IVL) system to treat calcified arteries, the hospital announced after its first successful procedure on Nov. 16.

A report issued Dec. 14 by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Heart Association and Truth Initiative, among other public health groups, ranked Alaska No. 1 in the nation for funding programs that protect high-school aged kids against tobacco use and help current smokers quit.

The use of paclitaxel-coated balloons and stents in the femoropopliteal arteries of patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD) was associated with relative mortality increases of 68 percent and 93 percent at two and five years of follow-up, respectively, according to a meta-analysis published Dec. 6 in the Journal of the American Heart Association.