The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently proposed some changes to national coverage policies for left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) and artificial hearts, the latter of which would no longer be covered under a national coverage determination. The proposal to allow Medicare administrative contractors (MAC) to make coverage decisions for artificial hearts on a case-by-case basis clanged across both industry and medical societies, which cited data collection problems and inequalities in access as reasons the existing coverage policy should remain in place.

A team of scientists at Duke Health has identified biomarkers that accurately detect viral infections before a person becomes symptomatic. The findings were published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Scientists long have puzzled over what goes wrong in people with cardiovascular disease. Now, they have created a cellular and molecular map of the healthy human heart, with an eye toward preventing some of the 17.9 million deaths from cardiovascular disease that occur each year.