On Friday, February 21, a team of Oklahoma Heart Institute physicians, led by Drs. Kamran Muhammad, Wayne Leimbach Jr. and Paul Kempe performed the first three successful commercial Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) procedures in Oklahoma using the recently FDA-approved Medtronic CoreValve.  The Medtronic CoreValve transcatheter heart valve was FDA approved just last month. The…

The U.S. Surgeon General recently announced that unless tobacco use rates fall, more than 5.6 million children in the United States will die early. Calling for a “tobacco-free generation” Surgeon General Dr Boris Lushniak released the first report in more than a decade to get the country talking about the leading cause of preventable death in our…

Resistant hypertension is defined as blood pressure that remains above a goal target when at least 3 medication therapies, including a diuretic, fail to control the blood pressure. This affects an estimated 13 %of the population with high blood pressure, also known as hypertension. For those with sleep apnea, in addition to resistant hypertension, a new…

Director of the cardiac CT program at Oklahoma Heart Institute Dr. Victor Cheng joins us on the blog today to talk about the program and when patients should be referred for a scan.  Cardiac computed tomographic angiography (CTA) is special CT scan that images the entire heart when heart structures are relatively still. A steady heart rate of less than…

New recommendations were announced Tuesday by the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association. They say an estimated 31 percent of Americans could benefit from the use of statin drugs. That figure is more than double the current percentage (15 percent) of Americans taking these medications to lower their cholesterol. The recommendation, which is based on…

Today we are taking you inside the heart catheterization lab at Oklahoma Heart Institute for a balloon valvuloplasty procedure to determine valve sizing prior to TAVR.

A revolutionary procedure for heart patients is celebrating one-and-a-half years of getting Oklahomans back on their feet. The procedure is for patients who are too sick for open heart surgery but facing long odds of survival. One Tulsa man says the procedure is almost too good to be true. “I tell you, it’s hard to…

The Oklahoma Heart Research and Education Foundation recently held their bi-annual symposium in Tulsa, OK. Health care providers from across the region listened to presentations from several Oklahoma Heart Institute cardiologist on a variety of topics. One particular moment received spontaneous laughter from the audience, as Dr. Eugene Ichinose pulled a chair onto the stage,…

There is a new term making its way around the Internet – “Sitting is the new smoking.” If it sounds shocking, it’s meant to, as researchers are taking a long, hard look at how we spend our time and what impact that is having on our health. Just as smoking a little is still smoking,…

Cardiac electrophysiologist Dr. David Sandler joins us today on the blog to talk about heart monitors for arrhythmia patients.  Patients who experience symptoms such as palpitation or fainting spells are often prescribed monitors in order to catch a potential heart rhythm abnormality. Choosing the proper monitor requires the provider to take a thorough history and have knowledge…