
Cardiology News and Events

Dr. Stephen Chan Appointed as New Director of Vascular Medicine Institute
The Department of Medicine has announced the appointment of Dr. Stephen Chan, MD, PhD, as the new Director of the Vascular Medicine Institute beginning January 2020.

Dr. Samir Saba Named Chief of Cardiology
Samir Saba, MD, has been appointed co-director of the UPMC Heart and Vascular Institute and chief, Division of Cardiology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
The importance of gender in CRT device prescribing pattern and mortality outcome
Heart failure is remains one of the major health problems nationally and globally, with over 5 million patients in the US and 20 million patients worldwide. Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT, a established therapy for select patients with heart...
Social media engagement may have positive academic impact on cardiovascular research
Social media outlets, particularly Twitter, have gained interest among the cardiovascular community as a modality for dissemination of cardiovascular research. Online attention scores have emerged as a tool to assess the performance of scholarly articles...
Exploring the mechanisms of the racial disparity in drowsy driving
Falling asleep while driving is a significant public health problem, leading to tens of thousands of automobile accidents every year in the United States. It has been known that in the US, blacks and Hispanics are at higher risk of drowsy driving than...
Temporal Associations Between Smoking and Cardiovascular Disease
Smoking has long been a major risk factor for coronary artery disease (CAD). The last 4 decades have seen significant changes to population health and CAD risk factors, including a decline in smoking prevalence, an increase in diabetes and obesity, and the...
New research co-authored by Dr. Sebhat Erqou helps connect the dots between race, pollution and heart disease
Epidemiological studies have shown that chronic exposure to environmental air pollution is associated with adverse health outcomes, but their role in racial disparities in clinical outocmes has not been fully elucidated. We aimed to assess racial...
Pitt/HVI Investigators publish largest study yet linking severity of invasively measured pulmonary hypertension to outcomes in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF)
Heart failure is one of the largest public health problems. One type of heart failure, known as heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), is the most common type yet there are no specific therapies, with now multiple negative clinical trials...

Pitt, UPMC Plan $200 Million Immunotherapy Center, World-Class Innovation Hub in Bloomfield
The University of Pittsburgh and UPMC are partnering to create a UPMC Immune Transplant and Therapy Center (ITTC), which will be based in a world-class innovation hub to be developed in Bloomfield. UPMC has made an initial $200 million, three-year funding...
Dr. Teekakirikul is lead author on expert opinion featured on the ACC website
Dr. Polakit Teekakirikul, a cardiology fellow in the Heart & Vascular Institute, is lead author on an expert opinion article featured on the American College of Cardiology education website. "Mitral valve derangement is increasingly recognized as a...
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