Here are 42 cardiology firsts Becker's covered in 2022:
- Columbus-based Ohio State University's Richard M. Ross Heart Hospital became the first in the world to study the clinical benefits of a device used to treat diastolic heart failure.
- Cardiac surgeons at Hackensack (N.J.) University Medical Center, part of the Hackensack Meridian health system, performed the first-in-human Impella RP Flex heart pump implant Nov. 8.
- Physicians at Miami-based HCA Florida Mercy Hospital became the first in the state to perform a new procedure called thoraflex hybrid complete aortic replacement.
- Chicago-based Northwestern Medicine's Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute became the first in Illinois to successfully transplant a heart donated after circulatory death.
- Minneapolis-based Allina Health opened the state's first cardiovascular ASC.
- Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Healthcare became the first system in Utah to perform a new lifesaving heart procedure.
- Long Beach (Calif.) Medical Center became the first facility in the nation to use a new heart biopsy device.
- Tulsa-based Oklahoma Heart Institute cardiologists were the first in the world to use a new heart valve implant.
- Bernard Lown, MD, inventor of the direct-current defibrillator, will likely be featured on the U.S. dollar coin in 2024.
- Chapel Hill, N.C.-based UNC Children's Hospital implanted its first artificial heart into a 5-month-old girl with severe heart failure.
- Hattiesburg, Miss.-based Forrest Health and Hattiesburg Clinic partnered to open Mississippi's first outpatient heart surgery center.
- Minneapolis-based cardiologist Elizabeth Klodas, MD, created foods designed to fight heart disease.
- Charlotte, N.C.-based Atrium Health Sanger Heart & Vascular Institute's heart transplant team is using technology that keeps hearts viable for up to eight hours instead of the traditional four.
- Cardiologists at Durham, N.C.-based Duke Health performed what is believed to be the world's first partial heart transplant by fusing the arteries and valves from a freshly donated heart onto an existing heart.
- Tampa, Fla.-based USF Health and Tampa General Hospital are the second in the nation to perform a minimally invasive heart surgery and the first in the region to perform a noninvasive parathyroid gland surgery.
- University of Louisville (Ky.) Health's Jewish Hospital is the first heart hospital in the region.
- Marietta, Ga.-based Wellstar Health System implanted the state's first thoracic branched endograft Aug. 22.
- Hackensack (N.J.) University Medical Center became the second hospital in the world to implant the Impella Bridge-to-Recovery heart pump.
- Interventional cardiologists at the Seattle-based UW Medicine Heart Institute performed the first minimally invasive heart tumor removal using a catheter-delivered device July 27.
- Danville, Pa.-based Geisinger Medical Center is the first hospital in the U.S. to receive The Joint Commission's Comprehensive Heart Attack Center Certification.
- Davie, Fla.-based HCA Florida University Hospital completed its first minimally invasive thrombectomy to treat pulmonary embolism.
- St. Cloud (Minn.) Hospital became the first in the world to remove a heart tumor without open heart surgery.
- Iowa's first implant of a new leadless and retrievable pacemaker was performed at Des Moines-based MercyOne Iowa Heart Center.
- The world's first heart transplant involving a donor and recipient who are both HIV-positive was performed at New York City-based Montefiore Health System's Bronx location.
- A $3.1 million grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute was awarded July 6 to three organizations for a first-of-its-kind prospective study to look for the earliest signs of heart vessel damage in young, premenopausal breast cancer survivors.
- Children's Hospital Colorado recently became the first hospital in the world to implant the newly FDA-approved G-Armor stent.
- Washington, D.C.-based MedStar Washington Hospital Center performed the first robotic mitral valve surgery in the region.
- Cardiologists from Edison, N.J.-based Hackensack Meridian reported what is believed to be the first patient with heart failure and a blood clot to undergo a minimally invasive transcatheter aortic valve replacement using computed tomography fusion imaging.
- Moultrie, Ga.-based Colquitt Regional Medical Center recently became the first in the state to offer patients the MyoSPECT, a new single-photon emission computerized tomography device.
- Interventional cardiologists and a cardiothoracic surgeon at Louisville, Ky.-based Norton Heart and Vascular Institute performed the region’s first successful transcatheter replacement of a native mitral valve.
- Atlantic Health System's Morristown (N.J.) Medical Center launched the first hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and sports cardiology fellowship in the U.S.
- The Medical University of South Carolina recently became the first academic medical center, and second medical center in the world, to use a minimally invasive procedure to implant a heart failure treatment device.
- A team of specialists at Jacksonville, Fla.-based Baptist Health became the first in the Southeast region of the U.S. to implant the Amplatzer Amulet Left Atrial Appendage Occluder.
- Cheyenne (Wyo.) Regional Medical Center became the first in the state to use Shockwave technology in a calcified coronary plaque procedure.
- Physicians at Rady Children's Hospital in Encinitas, Calif., performed the hospital's first dual heart and kidney transplant.
- Durham, N.C.-based Duke Health performed the world's first dual heart-thymus transplant procedure in August 2021.
- A dual-chamber leadless pacemaker system was implanted in the first U.S. patient as part of a global clinical trial at Cleveland Clinic.
- Using temperature-controlled preservation systems from Paragonix Technologies, four U.S. transplant centers collaborated to transport a pair of donor lungs and heart 4,000 miles, enabling record-distance transplants.
- New Brunswick, N.J.-based Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital became the first in the U.S. to receive robotic telecardiac ultrasound technology from France for clinical use.
- Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.-based Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center became the first hospital in the state to offer the new LARIAT/Convergent Hybrid AF procedure for atrial fibrillation.
- The Vascular Care Group in Leominster, Mass., became the first in the state to complete a percutaneous femoral-popliteal artery bypass procedure.
- Baltimore-based University of Maryland School of Medicine clinicians performed the first successful transplant of a genetically modified pig heart in a patient with end-stage heart disease.