This prespecified secondary analysis of the MOMENTUM 3 randomized clinical trial aims to determine whether clinical outcomes of patients with 2 different left ventricular assist devices differed based on preoperative categories of bridge to transplant/bridge to candidacy vs destination therapy.

This cohort study assesses whether long-term variability and rate of change of blood pressure from young adulthood to midlife are associated with cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality by middle age.

Increased attention has focused on shared decision-making (SDM) and use of decision aids for treatment decisions in cardiology. In this issue of JAMA Cardiology, Coylewright et al report the results of a rigorously performed pilot study on the use of a decision aid to facilitate SDM for patients with symptomatic severe aortic stenosis (AS) at high or prohibitive risk for surgery considered for transcatheter aortic valve replacement vs medical therapy. Comparisons were made between encounters before clinicians were trained to use a decision aid and the first and fifth encounters after a decision aid was used. The patient-clinician interactions were audio recorded and later coded by independent reviewers using a validated measure to assess SDM. This mixed-methods study found that SDM significantly improved in a stepwise manner from the initial usual care encounter (before use of a decision aid) to the first and then fifth encounters after implementation of the decision aid. Along with this improvement in SDM, patients (n = 35) demonstrated increased knowledge about their treatment choices and reported increased satisfaction in their care with no increase in decisional conflict. In contrast, clinicians (n = 6) reported that they believed they already engaged in SDM prior to use of the decision aid and, after multiple uses of the decision aid, believed patients did not understand or benefit from this tool. The disconnect between clinician and patient perspectives was sobering and has implications for the adoption of decision aids or other tools to facilitate SDM in the clinical setting. Notable limitations of the study, which are acknowledged by the authors, include (1) small sample size (of clinicians and patients); (2) the decision aid is most useful for the relatively smaller number of patients at high or prohibitive risk for surgery for whom transcatheter aortic valve replacement and medical therapy may both be reasonable options; and (3) the lack of diversity in the clinicians (all male), which reflects the current demographics of interventional cardiology and cardiac surgery.

This mixed-methods pilot study examines whether the repeated use of a decision aid by heart teams was associated with greater shared decision-making, along with improved patient-centered outcomes and clinicians’ attitudes about decision aids.

In this issue of JAMA Cardiology, Lim and colleagues report on cardiovascular functional reserve in people with end-stage renal disease before and after kidney transplant. They performed a 3-arm, prospective, concurrent cohort study to assess change in cardiovascular functional reserve after kidney transplant using state-of-the-art cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET). They also assessed left ventricular morphologic findings 1 year after transplant. They enrolled 81 participants with stage 5 chronic kidney disease (CKD) who underwent kidney transplant, 85 wait-listed participants with stage 5 CKD who had not undergone transplant, and 87 controls treated for hypertension only. The authors quantified cardiovascular functional reserve using CPET in parallel with transthoracic echocardiography. One year after transplant, a significant improvement in maximum oxygen consumption was found in the transplant group compared with the nontransplant group. Moreover, left ventricular function improved but not the body mass index.

To the Editor We read the recent article by Klauser et al with great interest. While the potential implications of the findings are exciting, we have several concerns. First, the authors do not explicitly state whether electrocardiogram gating was used in their study. This is an important detail because cardiac motion artifact is a source of artifactual coloration with dual-energy computed tomography (DECT), particularly with dual-source scanners given the approximately 80-millisecond temporal difference between the 2 radiography beams. Furthermore, beam hardening artifact from calcified atheromas and partial volume effect, known sources of artifacts in the 2-material decomposition algorithm of DECT, may largely explain the findings. While patients with gout had higher prevalence of coronary calcification (55 of 59 patients [93%]) and cardiovascular monosodium urate (MSU) deposition (51 of 59 patients [86%]) than controls, the authors do not report whether the 4 patients with gout without coronary calcifications exhibited MSU deposition nor the number of controls or cadaveric hearts with coronary calcification. The images from the article show areas of green pixelization occurring adjacent to calcified plaques on grayscale computed tomography images (eg, Figure 2A and D, left anterior descending artery [yellow arrowhead]), which would favor this artifact hypothesis without additional data.

In Reply We appreciate the valuable comments of Becce et al on our article. We applied prospective electrocardiography gating using a thin-slice cardiac protocol to ensure highest spatial resolution with minimal motion artifact. A noncontrast electrocardiography-gated computed tomography (CT) examination with standardized scan parameters was performed using a 128-slice dual-source CT (SOMATOM Definition Flash; Siemens) with a detector collimation of 2 × 64 × 0.6 mm, rotation time of 0.28 seconds, and prospective electrocardiography triggering for heart rates less than 65 beats per minute (diastolic padding, 70% of RR interval) and more than 65 beats per minute (systolic padding, 40% of RR interval). Axial images were reconstructed with 0.75-mm slice width, increment of 0.5, and a medium-smooth convolution kernel (B26f). When motion artifact was present, it was distinguished by visual analysis of an experienced observer and colorized pixels related to motion were excluded.

This cohort study assesses cardiovascular functional reserve before and after kidney transplant in patients with end-stage renal disease.

This cross-sectional study investigates whether hospital inpatient percutaneous coronary intervention volume is associated with rates of 30-day risk-adjusted mortality and hospital readmission after transcatheter aortic valve replacement and transcatheter mitral valve repair.

Lowering low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels remains a mainstay of cardiovascular disease prevention, but gaps in treatment remain, even in persons with hypercholesterolemia and greatly elevated LDL-C levels. Although well-described gene variants in the apolipoprotein B (APOB), low-density lipoprotein receptor (LDLR), and proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) genes explain small but important fractions of monogenic hypercholesterolemia, recent attention has turned to prognostication of cardiovascular disease using polygenic risk scores (PRS) that incorporate common genetic variants derived from large-scale genome-wide association studies of lipid subfractions. Earlier PRS considered only variants with genome-wide significance, and newer studies have focused on methods that better capture the variance conferred by millions of variants, suggesting an ability to identify risk equivalent to monogenic mutations. There remains a gap in evidence from prospective observational studies or treatment trials regarding the appropriate placement of PRS in risk assessment and lipid treatment decisions relative to information on rare monogenic gene variants, particularly in multiethnic populations.

This cohort study uses the UK Biobank cohort data to compare the association of monogenic vs polygenic hypercholesterolemia with the risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease among individuals with comparable levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol.

To the Editor We read with interest the study by Sepehrvand et al, which described secular trends in the conduct of pragmatic or explanatory cardiovascular randomized clinical trials over 2 decades. We believe extension of this thoughtful analysis can provide additional insights into pragmatic vs explanatory trials.

In Reply We thank Fernandes et al for their interest in our study and agree that this field requires further exploration. Explanatory trials are primed to maximize the likelihood of finding efficacy of an intervention by testing it in an ideal setting, whereas pragmatic trials aim to test effectiveness of an intervention in a more generalizable setting. Hence, they are expected to generate more generalizable results, with the risk understood that there may be more variation in less tightly controlled environments, which may result in differing results.

This Special Communication analyzes the conclusions drawn from effective regurgitant orifice area analysis and end-diastolic volume analysis from 2 randomized clinical trials to assess disparities in the different clinical outcomes.

With a date span of 1779 through 1955, the McManus-Young Collection provides a rich survey of the literature of "illusion practices," which includes works on conjuring, ventriloquism, fortune-telling, spiritualism, witchcraft, gambling, hypnotism, automata, and mind reading comprised of a gathering of thousands of pamphlets and offprints. This ephemeral literature is the backbone of modern...

Robert Evett (1922-1975) was a composer, arts editor, and critic who made his home primarily in the Washington, D.C., area. This collection contains several scores, sketches, and instrument parts for works composed by Evett; biographical information collected by Evett's family after his death; and his published book and music reviews for the "Atlantic Monthly," "New Republic," and "Washington...

Lawyer, educator, and judge. Personal and official correspondence, lectures, legal briefs and opinions, legal case files, memoranda, speeches, writings, research notes, and other papers documenting Bork's career as a lawyer, legal scholar, professor of law, and federal appellate court judge. Also included is material relating to his unsuccessful nomination to the Supreme Court.

Economist, government official, and director of the Congressional Budget Office. Correspondence, memoranda, reports, speeches and other writings, congressional testimony, printed materials, newspaper clippings, and photographs pertaining to Rivlin's career as an economist and government official.

Associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. Correspondence and telegrams, some written while Lurton was attending the University of Chicago (1857-1886) and while he was a prisoner in Camp Chase, Ohio, and at Johnson Island Prison during the Civil War.

Sculptor and artist. Correspondence, writings, financial records, scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, photographs, and other papers of French, his daughter, Margaret French Cresson, and other members of the French family relating primarily to French's career as a sculptor and artist and to the French family.

Lawyer, army officer, United States representative from California, United States commissioner of Indian affairs, and governor of Kansas. Letterpress books containing correspondence relating to Denver's law practice in Washington, D.C., which was concerned with Choctaw Indian claims and land disputes in California and elsewhere in the West; his campaign for the Democratic presidential...

Novelist and author. Correspondence, diaries, drafts and galleys of playscripts, poems, songs, and fiction and nonfiction books, tearsheets, dictation and interview transcripts, notes, research materials, descriptive inventories of personal papers, legal and financial documents, clippings, printed material, scrapbooks, publicity and promotional records, maps, book illustrations, photographs, and...

Barker Library - PQ7298.422.U37 L67 2019

Dewey Library - PQ6653.E62 M6613 2020

Hayden Library - PQ7082.P7 C23 2018

Hayden Library - PQ7296.J6 Z8928 2018

Dewey Library - PQ7390.G773 D6613 2018

With the arrest of Tehsin Akhtar, thought to be Indian Mujahideen (IM) commander of India operations, security agencies have netted another big fish in the fight against terror.

Movie stars in 2014's polls are a welcome addition to the fray. For those carping about how stars represent glamour and gloss, why not?

Lacking a cohesive national campaign, Kejriwal has yet again taken recourse to insurgent tactics – projecting himself as Modi’s only rival when Congress is yet to declare its nominee for Varanasi.

The disappearance of inflammatory communal slogans from political speeches suggests development is the agenda for 2014.

Trinamool Congress appears ready to move forward from the ferocious acrimony of Mamata-Modi exchanges during the election campaign.

On the face of it the Fifa World Cup is all about quality football, generally recognised as the greatest sporting showpiece on earth.

Going by a letter written by Nawaz Sharif to Narendra Modi, that he was 'much satisfied' with their meeting in New Delhi, the two prime ministers have succeeded in striking up a working relationship.