CHICAGO — Stopping statin therapy in older adults with multiple chronic conditions but no established cardiovascular disease may be a reasonable option, according to results from the STREAM trial.
Among nearly 1,900 adults aged 70 years and older who were randomly assigned to stop or continue their statin, discontinuation was noninferior to continued use for time to major CV events or death at 2 years, Nicolas Rodondi, MD, director of the Institute of Primary Health Care at University of Bern, Switzerland, said during a late-breaking science presentation at the American Heart Association

CHICAGO — Left bundle branch pacing was superior to right ventricular pacing for reducing all-cause death, heart failure hospitalization and pacing-induced cardiomyopathy in patients with atrioventricular block.
These findings support left bundle branch (LBB) pacing as a first-line pacing strategy for patients needing high ventricular pacing, according to the OptimPacing researchers. The study was presented at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions and simultaneously published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
“Right ventricular pacing is traditional pacing for heart block,

CHICAGO — In patients with iron depletion and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, an infusion of ferric derisomaltose improved various measures of exercise capacity compared with placebo, researchers reported.
For the IRONMET-HFpEF trial, presented at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions and simultaneously published in Circulation, Gregory D. Lewis, MD, director of heart failure at the Mass General Brigham Heart and Vascular Institute and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and colleagues randomly assigned 65 patients with HFpEF and iron deficiency 2:1 to

ORLANDO — Time since last booster, but not vaccination status or total number of doses, was independently associated with mortality in patients with immune-mediated rheumatic diseases who were hospitalized for COVID-19, said a presenter here.
Vitor Cruz, MD, PhD, of the Federal University of Goias, in Brazil, presented data at ACR Convergence demonstrating that mortality, while declining over time, remains substantial among patients with immune-mediated rheumatic diseases who are hospitalized for COVID-19, with a rate of 28% in 2024.
“Patients with immune-mediated rheumatic diseases

ORLANDO — Immunologic and infectious complications associated with cellular therapies in immune-mediated inflammatory disease remain incompletely defined, according to data presented at ACR Convergence.
“While this field has really advanced over the past 5 years, we are still in the early stages of learning about complications, in particular infections,” Cassandra Calabrese, DO, of the Cleveland Clinic, told Healio. “At this point, the details on infection-related complications are lacking granularity and we are way behind in reporting.”
To examine infectious

ORLANDO — Scientific stakeholders and regulatory bodies alike will be essential to optimizing AI to help bring treatments like CAR T-cell therapy to the clinic, according to the keynote speaker at ACR Convergence.
“The intersection of AI and rheumatology is really an exciting space,” Brian Anderson, MD, president and CEO of the Coalition for Health AI (CHAI), told attendees in his address during the meeting’s opening ceremony. “It brings together some of the most cutting-edge therapeutics, science and medicine.”
At the heart of that intersection lies CAR

CHICAGO — A “smart alerting” algorithm selecting cardiac arrest volunteer responder by estimated travel time boosted volunteer arrival before emergency medical services.
The algorithm ruled out volunteer responders too far from the scene of suspected cardiac arrest or who were unable to arrive before an ambulance, potentially reducing futile dispatches and keeping volunteers engaged with the smartphone alerting system, according to new data presented at the Resuscitation Science Symposium of the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions.
“Many regions in Europe and

CHICAGO — In follow-up lasting up to 25 years, percutaneous coronary intervention did not reduce death or MI in veterans with stable coronary artery disease, according to new data from the COURAGE trial.
The results are the same as the primary outcome reported in 2007 after a median of 4.6 years and a follow-up analysis reported in 2015 after a median of 11.9 years.
“These findings do not support a routine strategy of elective upfront PCI to reduce long-term death or MI in patients with stable CAD,” Neel M. Butala, MD, assistant professor of medicine (cardiology) at the University of Colorado

ORLANDO — The novel neonatal Fc receptor-targeting monoclonal antibody nipocalimab bested placebo in multiple lupus response metrics at 52 weeks, according to data presented at ACR Convergence.
“It has long been known that autoantibodies can be pathogenic,” Richard A. Furie, MD, chief of the division of rheumatology at Northwell Health, told Healio regarding the presentation. “There are several strategies that can be employed to reduce their numbers.
“Nipocalimab is a monoclonal antibody that binds to the neonatal Fc receptor, a receptor that is responsible for the

DALLAS — Although CMS proposed to remove revision total knee arthroplasty from the inpatient-only list, results showed widespread outpatient designations may lead to negative margins and reduce access to complex revision care.
“Orthopedic surgeons keep getting procedures taken off the inpatient-only list. The problem with this is that hospitals are losing cash on these complex procedures, and for private practices that are performing these procedures, their reimbursement is going down and a lot of people cannot stay afloat,” David N. Kugelman, MD, of Rothman Orthopaedic