Measurement of the left atrial (LA) volume index is a standard when evaluating the left atrium in echocardiography.

The number of adults with elevated blood pressure (BP) has doubled over the past 3 decades, and hypertension is among the leading modifiable risk factors for attributable deaths.

Although “innovation” has become the buzzword of the decade, in health care, technological innovation over the last century has been transformative.

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained arrhythmia among patients with aortic stenosis and portends an increased risk for adverse clinical outcomes whether or not surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR) or transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) is performed.

In recent years, cumulative evidence has suggested that isolated surgical aortic valve replacement (AVR) in adults is often not curative. Whether receiving a mechanical or biological prosthesis, there follows a reduction in life expectancy compared with an age- and sex-matched population, a trend more pronounced for younger patients.