Deep learning may be able to predict incomplete stent expansion, new research in JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions suggests. The research team, looking to develop pre-procedural IVUS-based models to predict stent underexpansion, examined a total of 618 coronary lesions in 618 patients undergoing PCI were randomly assigned to training and test sets. Stent areas predicted by the pre-procedural ICUS-based regression model significantly correlated with stent areas measured with IVUS post-stenting (r=0.802). There were significant correlations between predicted and measured minimal stent area (r=0.832) as well as predicted and measured total stent volume (r=0.958). “Deep-learning algorithms accurately predicted incomplete stent expansion,” the researchers wrote. “A data-driven approach may assist clinicians in making treatment decisions to avoid stent underexpansion as a preventable cause of stent failure.”
Noise pollution from transportation may be associated with aggravating some risk factors, leading to increased cardiovascular risk, results from a new review in Nature Reviews Cardiology reports. The research team, focused on the indirect, non-auditory effects of transportation news on overall cardiovascular health, reviewed epidemiological research on the effects of transportation noise on cardiovascular risk factors such as blood pressure, stress hormone levels, endothelia dysfunction, oxidative stress, NADPH oxidase 2 (NOX2) activity, nitric oxide synthase uncoupling, and vascular inflammation in mouse models. “Noise-induced stress increases cerebral oxidative stress and downregulates and uncouples neuronal nitric oxide synthase, providing a potential explanation for the observed retardation in the development of cognitive function (memory and learning) in children exposed to aircraft noise,” they wrote. “As the percentage of the population exposed to detrimental levels of transportation noise will rise again when the COVID pandemic is over, noise mitigation efforts and legislation to reduce noise are highly important for future public health.”
ICYMI: Health Canada is conducting a safety review into tofacitinib following reports that the drug may be associated with serious heart-related issues and cancer. According to Health Canada, the review follows the results of a long-term clinical trial conducted by Pfizer that assessed tofacitinib at two doses—5 mg and 10 mg, both twice a day—in patients aged ≥50 years with rheumatoid arthritis who have at least one cardiovascular risk factor.
