The Short and Sweet on Sodium-Glucose Cotransporter Inhibitors and Glucagon-like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonists in Heart Failure.

Heart failure (HF) affects 6 million people in the US, and type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a significant risk factor for HF. Since 2008, regulatory agencies have required cardiovascular safety trials for new T2D therapies, and these have consistently demonstrated the cardiovascular benefits of glucose-lowering drugs. Sodium-glucose cotransporter inhibitors (SGLTi) and glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists (RAs)/glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) reduce major adverse cardiovascular events and deaths, regardless of diabetes status, and improve cardiorespiratory fitness.

Delivering guideline-directed medical therapy for heart failure with reduced ejection fraction as an over-encapsulated polypill: rationale and protocol for the COMBO-HF-X pilot crossover randomised clinical trial.

Introduction: A four-drug regimen of guideline-directed medical therapy (GDMT) for heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) is underused, in part due to prescriber inertia and low patient adherence. Although fixed-dose combination pills ('polypills') have improved adherence and clinical outcomes for other conditions, there are no polypills available that combine multiple classes of GDMT for HFrEF. Pharmacy-level over-encapsulation, in which several tablets are combined into one capsule, offers an opportunity to create customised HFrEF polypills with the goal of improving delivery of HFrEF therapies.

Revisiting ICD Therapy for Primary Prevention in Patients With Heart Failure and Reduced Ejection Fraction.

Implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) are recommended to reduce the risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD) in patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). The landmark studies leading to the current guideline recommendations preceded the 4 pillars of guideline-directed medical therapies (GDMTs). Therefore, some have questioned the role of ICDs for primary prevention in current clinical practice.

Predictors of All-Cause 30-Day Readmissions in Patients with Heart Failure at an Urban Safety Net Hospital: The Importance of Social Determinants of Health and Mental Health.

Introduction: Heart failure (HF) is a frequent cause of readmissions. Despite caring for underresourced patients and dependence on government funding, safety net hospitals frequently incur penalties for failing to meet pay-for-performance readmission metrics. Limited research exists on the causes of HF readmissions in safety net hospitals.

Association Between Coronary Assessment in Heart Failure and Clinical Outcomes Within a Safety-Net Setting Using a Target Trial Emulation Observational Design.

Background: Ischemic cardiomyopathy is the leading cause of heart failure (HF). Most patients do not undergo coronary assessment after HF diagnosis. There are no randomized clinical trials of coronary assessment after HF diagnosis.

Socioeconomic status and in-hospital outcomes for patients undergoing heart transplantation or ventricular assist device implantation.

Introduction: Although lower socioeconomic status (SES) has been associated with worse in-hospital outcomes among patients with heart failure, the in-hospital outcomes for patients undergoing durable Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) implantation or Heart Transplantation (HT) based on SES have not been well characterized.

Methods: We analyzed data from the National Inpatient Sample of hospitalizations between January 2016 and December 2020 of patients aged 18 and over who underwent a HT or newly implanted LVAD. Quartile classification of the median household income of the patient's residential zip code was used to estimate SES.

Bridge the Gap: Reducing Inequity in Hospital Readmissions for African American Patients with Heart Failure Through Quality Improvement Initiatives.

Heart failure (HF) disproportionately impacts African Americans. We evaluated existing quality improvement (QI) initiatives and patient and provider perceptions of barriers to HF care to develop equity-centered QI recommendations. We performed a literature review, interviewed providers and patients (=11), and conducted a root cause analysis at a safety net hospital in San Francisco, California.

All-Payer Analysis of Heart Failure Hospitalization 30-Day Readmission: Comorbidities Matter.

Background: Thirty-day readmission following heart failure hospitalization impacts hospital performance measures and reimbursement. We investigated readmission characteristics and the magnitude of 30-day hospital readmissions after hospital discharge for heart failure using the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project State Inpatient Databases (SID).

Methods: Adults aged ≥ 40 years hospitalized with a primary discharge diagnosis of heart failure from 2007-2011 were identified in the California, New York, and Florida SIDs.

Adenosine A2A analogue reduces long-term neurologic injury after blunt spinal trauma.

Background: ATL-146e is an adenosine A(2A) agonist that has recently been demonstrated to improve neurological outcome in spinal cord injury in animals. In the current study, we extended the treatment paradigm and tested neurobehavioral functioning out to 1 week after injury to assess if early neurological improvement is sustained long term by an adenosine analogue.

Materials And Methods: New Zealand White rabbits (3.

Progressive degradation and subsequent refinement of acoustic representations in the adult auditory cortex.

Correlated neuronal activity is believed to play an important role in refining and maintaining cortical circuitry during early development. Here we provide evidence that globally and locally correlated activity mediate different forms of adult plasticity. Pulses of broad-spectrum noise were used to activate time-locked responses across large areas of the rat auditory cortex, globally synchronizing cortical activity.