CardioExchange Archive

Hospital Volume and Mortality: Using Medicare data, Ross et al. investigated the association between hospital volume and the 30-day death rate for patients admitted for acute MI, heart failure, and pneumonia. In their report in the New England Journal of Medicine, the researchers found that increased volume was associated with reduced rates of death for all three conditions, but they observed a volume threshold after which the effect was attenuated. The threshold was reached when the annual patient volume was 610 for acute MI, 500 for heart failure, and 210 for pneumonia. (The senior author of the study was Harlan Krumholz, editor-in-chief of CardioExchange.)Coronary Artery Fistula Closure: Coronary artery fistula closure is associated with a high rate of complications. In a report in Circulation, Valente et al. reviewed the records and angiograms of 76 patients who underwent diagnostic angiography for CAF. Drainage of the CAF into the coronary sinus was the only angiographic feature that predicted an adverse outcome.