JACC This Week

In this September 10th, 2024 issue of Jack, Dr. Michael Ogburn's study highlights a troubling association between high postnatal opioid exposure and poorer neurodevelopmental outcomes in infants who have undergone cardiac surgery. Despite careful adjustments for confounding factors, increased opioid use was linked to significant deficits in cognitive, language, and motor skills, emphasizing the need for stricter protocols and alternative pain management strategies in pediatric cardiac care.

In the September 10, 2024, issue of JACC, the study by Dr. Doron Seeker and colleagues investigates alirocumab's impact on cardiovascular outcomes related to triglyceride levels. Despite effectively lowering LDL cholesterol, alirocumab did not show significant clinical benefit through triglyceride reduction, suggesting that its efficacy may be limited in addressing cardiovascular risk associated with elevated triglycerides.

Rasha K. Al-Lamee, MD, PhD, JACC Deputy Editor and Navin K. Kapur MD discuss the work from the Cardiogenic Shock Working Group, which is an academic research consortium comprising ~40 hospitals in the U.S. and internationally.

Aakriti Gupta, MD, FACC, JACC Executive Associate Editor, and Stefan D. Anker, MD, discuss the insights from the RESHAPE-HF2 trial - an eight-year study on the efficacy of transcatheter edge-to-edge repair for mitral valve regurgitation in patients with heart failure.

Khurram Nasir, MBBS, FACC, JACC Associate Editor and Tor Biering-Sorenson, MD, MPH, PhD, discuss the importance of influenza vaccines for patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), particularly in the context of the DANFLU-1 study.

Neha J. Pagidipati, MD, FACC, JACC Associate Editor and Mikhail Kosiborod, MD, FACC discuss an exciting secondary analysis of the STEP-HFpEF program, shedding light on the groundbreaking findings related to heart failure and obesity.

Neha J. Pagidipati, MD, FACC, JACC Associate Editor and Subodh Verma MD, PhD explore a secondary analysis of the SELECT trial, a landmark study investigating the cardiovascular benefits of semaglutide in people with obesity or overweight without diabetes.

Harlan Krumholz, MD, FACC, JACC Editor-in-Chief, and Benjamin M. Scirica, MD, MPH, FACC, discuss the surprising benefits of semaglutide beyond weight loss and cardiovascular health from the SELECT trial, which investigated the effects of semaglutide on COVID-19 outcomes and non-cardiovascular deaths in patients with obesity and cardiovascular disease.

Neha J. Pagidipati, MD, FACC, JACC Associate Editor, and Richard Pratley, MD, discuss insights from the FLOW trial – revealing that semaglutide reduced heart failure events and cardiovascular death by approximately 27%, both in patients with and without prior heart failure.

In this episode, Dr. Valentin Fuster reviews five pivotal studies from September 2024, focusing on antithrombotic strategies and diabetes treatments. Key insights include the efficacy of dual antithrombotic therapy over triple therapy, the benefits of anticoagulation alone post-left atrial appendage occlusion, and the superior cardiovascular outcomes of SGLT2 inhibitors and GLP-1 receptor agonists in diabetes management.