Here 10 notable cardiology firsts since March 17, as reported by Becker’s:
1. A team at Durham, N.C.-based Duke Health successfully developed and performed the world’s first on-table heart reanimation for a 3-month-old patient earlier this year.
2. Cleveland-based University Hospitals Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute has become the first site in Ohio to clinically administer Flyrcado for the detection of coronary artery disease and arterial blockages. Flyrcado is a first-of-its-kind advanced positron emission tomography-scan myocardial perfusion imaging agent. Administered through an injection and utilized during cardiac stress tests, the agent enables physicians to visualize cardiac perfusion more accurately and precisely than standard imaging procedures.
3. Surgeons from Tampa (Fla.) General Hospital and USF Health, also based in Tampa, partnered to perform the world’s first recorded bloodless heart-liver transplant.
4. A Houston-based Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center team performed the first fully robotic heart transplant in the U.S.
5. The FDA approved a polypill as an initial treatment for hypertension in adults for the first time.
6. Surgeons at Morgantown, W.Va.-based WVU Medicine’s Heart and Vascular Institute performed the world’s first robotic transcatheter aortic valve replacement explant and aortic valve replacement.
7. A team of surgeons from New York City-based Mount Sinai Health System performed the first heart-liver-kidney transplant in the state of New York.
8. The cardiac surgery team at Washington, D.C.-based Children’s National Hospital became the first in the world to replace an artificial heart valve with a live tissue valve through a partial heart transplant.
9. A team from Children’s Hospital Los Angeles became the first in the world to study the use of genetically engineered pig hearts for infants waiting for heart transplantation.
10. A team at New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based Northwell Health’s Cohen Children’s Medical Center performed its first pediatric heart transplant in March.
