While 18th century French essayist Joseph Joubert wasnt specifically referring to the debate process that surrounds introducing new therapies to cardiovascular care, he does touch upon the crux of why debate is essential to every meaningful question. On May 23, at FDA headquarters in Silver Springs, Md., the Cardiovascular and Renal Drugs Advisory Committee engaged in a lively debate about the potential of introducing an antithrombin agent into the care cycle for patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS), which would be a completely novel approach for these patients.

The Breast Imaging Reporting and Data Systems (BI-RADS) MR lexicon helps quantify the likelihood of malignancy for MR-detected lesions, according to a study published online May 15 in Radiology.

Postmortem cardiac CT angiography (CTA) and image-guided biopsy have the potential to aid in defining the cause of death after acute chest pain. In addition to being a minimally invasive method of supplying information comparable to that provided by traditional autopsy, these imaging modalities expose additional histopathologic information that could further substantiate a final diagnosis, according to a study published online May 8 in Radiology.

Lung cancer screening with low-dose CT appears to boost the use of minimally invasive thoracic surgery, underscoring the importance of coupling CT screening programs with a dedicated video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) program, according to an article detailing results from the Danish Lung Cancer Screening Trial published in the June issue of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology.

Last week, I trekked up to Boston to cover the 33rd annual scientific sessions of the Heart Rhythm Society (HRS). If you were there, or even if you weren't, you can see from our coverage that the conference was stimulating and incited chatter about electrophysiology as well as its new technologies, drugs and methods.

St. Jude Medical has been granted CE Mark approval of its EnligHTN renal denervation system.

Abbott has announced that the Xience Prime and the Xience V everolimus-eluting coronary stent systems have received CE Mark in Europe for the use of dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) for at least three months after stent implantation in patients with coronary artery disease. This is the shortest duration of DAPT for any major drug eluting stent (DES) in Europe.

Laxative-free CT colonography (CTC) provided reasonable accuracy in the detection of adenomas 10 mm or larger and improved patient comfort compared with optical colonoscopy, according to a study published May 15 in Annals of Internal Medicine.