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Calcium’s CV Risks, HFmrEF Defined, and Cardiology Pay Jumps
April 23, 2026
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Together with
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“The next phase of progress will depend not only on better models and new applications but also on clearer expectations for how clinical impact is defined, evaluated and communicated. Without a clear connection between claims and evidence, medical AI risks being adopted faster than its real value can be understood.”
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Show us the evidence for the value of medical AI. Nat Med 32, 1163 (2026).
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ICYMI: If you missed Cardiac Wire’s latest webinar with Dr. Udo Hoffman, Dr. Brittany Weber, and Dr. Kashif Shaik, you can now watch the full session on demand! Hosted by Cardiac Wire in partnership with Cleerly, we explored new lessons from the CONFIRM2 Registry and how CT-based AI plaque quantification is shaping clinical practice. You can watch it on-demand here.
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While the verdict is still out on whether or not calcium supplements support bone health, new research in JAHA suggests they’re not good for your heart.
- Many elderly patients take calcium to try and treat or prevent osteoporosis as they age, though research suggests calcium intake doesn’t always offset this risk.
- Earlier research suggests that healthy adults with high levels of dietary calcium (not supplements) have a lower 10-year risk of ASCVD.
Since there’s little known about the effects of calcium supplements on the heart, researchers performed an observational analysis of EHR data from 237k patients in Hong Kong, 16% of which were prescribed calcium supplements.
After matching them to controls researchers found that patients on calcium supplements had higher CV risks across the board including:
- Acute MI risk: +10%
- Stroke: +6%
- Coronary heart disease: +9%
- CVD hospitalization or ED visit: +16%
Notably, the risk increases were higher in men and when patients didn’t take vitamin D supplements alongside calcium.
- Patients taking calcium without vitamin D saw a 21% increase in composite CV risk, while those taking both actually saw a 3% decrease in risk.
So where do these results come from? The researchers suggest it could be because circulating calcium levels directly contribute to aortic and coronary artery calcification.
- For example, calcium supplements can lead to an instantaneous increase in serum calcium levels for >6 hours.
- Population‐based studies have also alluded to a link between calcium supplementation and vascular calcification.
However, it’s important to remember that this retrospective study is the first of its kind and is purely observational, so it can’t prove causation or that calcium supplementation is a CV risk factor.
- It’s unlikely that a comparative study would ever be conducted either.
- And the study is on a mostly homogenous Asian population since it comes from Hong Kong.
The Takeaway
Calcium supplementation is common, especially in older patients, many of whom already struggle with CVD risk factors or co-morbidities. While this observational study is limited in what it can prove, it’s a good reminder to clinicians that more isn’t always better when it comes to supplements.
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Circle CVI’s CAD-RADS Rundown
Ever wondered how CAD-RADS enhances the communication of coronary artery disease findings from imaging studies? Check out this guide from Circle Cardiovascular Imaging about the evolution of CAD-RADS and how to incorporate it into your practice.
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Changes in Heart Failure Management
Heart failure is a complex condition with high heart failure hospitalization and cardiovascular mortality rates, especially among patients with HFpEF and HFmrEF, for whom treatment options have been limited. Read how Bayer’s Dr. Alanna Morris-Simon discusses the changing treatment landscape and strategies for improving patient outcomes.
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Book a Time with AccurKardia at HRS 26
The AccurKardia team is heading to Chicago from April 23-26, and will be exhibiting their FDA-cleared AccurECG 2.0 platform. Book a time here to find out about AccurECG’s device-agnostic, vendor neutral, and enterprise-volume ready design.
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- HFmrEF as Distinct Phenotype: A new Scientific Statement from the Heart Failure Society of America now defines heart failure with mildly reduced ejection fraction (HFmrEF) as an LVEF of 41–49%, urging clinicians to treat it as a distinct condition rather than a “gray zone.” While acknowledging limited dedicated trial data, the statement supports the application of established HFrEF therapies and emphasized the need for comorbidity assessment and periodic ejection fraction monitoring in patients with HFmrEF.
- Cardiology Ranks No. 2 in 2026 Physician Compensation: The 2026 Medscape Physician Compensation Report revealed that U.S. cardiologists earn an average of $575,000 annually, a 10% increase from the previous year. Outpacing the general physician income growth of 3%, cardiology moved up to the second-highest-paid specialty, trailing only orthopedics ($611,000). Despite these gains, only 53% of physicians feel fairly compensated, and significant gender pay gaps remain across both primary and specialty care.
- Medtronic Completes CathWorks Acquisition: Medtronic completed its acquisition of CathWorks, which offers the FFRangio System for delivering fractional flow reserve results from routine angiograms. The companies have been collaborating since 2022 under an agreement that gave Medtronic an acquisition option that it exercised for $585M. FFRangio offers an alternative to both pressure-wire and CT-derived FFR calculations, and the ALL-RISE study last month showed it worked well for guiding percutaneous coronary interventions.
- Exercise Timing Enhances Heart Health: A recent BMJ randomized trial suggests that aligning exercise timing with your “chronotype” (natural bodily preferences for sleep-wake times) significantly improves cardiometabolic and sleep outcomes. Less active adults in the study’s chronotype-aligned group achieved a -10.8 mmHg average reduction in SBP, nearly doubling the -5.5 mmHg reduction seen in the misaligned group. Aligned exercise also yielded superior gains in heart rate variability, LDL cholesterol, and sleep quality.
- Elucid Launches Lesion Inspection Tool: Elucid announced the commercial release of its Lesion Inspection Tool, a new feature within the Plaque-IQ suite for detailed coronary and carotid plaque analysis. The software enables clinicians to noninvasively quantify lesion-specific composition, identifying high-risk features like lipid-rich necrotic core, which Elucid says is validated against “ground-truth” histology. The feature further differentiates Elucid from its AI-CCTA competitors by doubling down on the histological approach to plaque risk quantification.
- SQ Innovation & Walmart for Home HF Care: SQ Innovation collaborated with Walmart Specialty Pharmacy to provide nationwide overnight delivery of Lasix ONYU, its FDA-approved subcutaneous furosemide treatment for heart failure-related edema. Physicians will now be able to put Walmart as a patient’s preferred pharmacy, enabling overnight delivery of Lasix directly to the patient’s home. This could help reduce ER and patient burden by negating trips to the hospital for edema management, something which is especially difficult for patients in rural areas.
- RAPIBLYK’s Landmark FDA Approval: AOP Health’s RAPIBLYK (landiolol) gained FDA approval for the first-ever U.S. therapeutic indicated for pediatric SVT (birth to age 18). Data from the LANDI-PED study helped support the FDA’s decision by showing a 20% reduction in ventricular tachycardia rate among infants and children. Since it’s ultra-short-acting, the selective beta-1 blocker provides clinicians with more responsive heart rate control and a swift offset which was unavailable to pediatric SVT patients till now.
- Foundayo’s Safety Flex: Following requests for more safety data, Lilly’s oral GLP-1 agonist, Foundayo, demonstrated non-inferior cardiovascular safety compared to insulin glargine in the Phase 3 ACHIEVE-4 trial. The once-daily pill yielded a 16% lower risk of major adverse cardiovascular events and a 57% reduction in all-cause mortality among high-risk type 2 diabetes patients compared to insulin. The results seem to assuage concerns that Foundayo’s approval was too speedy since it was approved in just 50 days, 294 days ahead of schedule.
- The First Traveling Bedside PDA Closure: Interventional cardiologists at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital successfully performed the first “traveling” bedside transcatheter patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) closure on a 22-week-old premature infant weighing 800 grams. The procedure was conducted directly within the infant’s isolette in the NICU at Broward Health Medical Center to eliminate the high risks associated with transporting fragile newborns to a catheterization lab.
- SCB and PCB’s Comparable One-Year Outcomes: A real-world registry analysis of over 8k patients found no significant clinical differences between sirolimus-coated balloons (SCBs) and paclitaxel-coated balloons (PCBs) one year after PCI. Published in JSCAI, the study showed comparable rates of target vessel revascularization, myocardial infarction, and all-cause mortality for both de novo and restenotic lesions. Although PCBs were associated with less in-stent restenosis, overall efficacy results suggest both drug coatings are viable for routine clinical practice.
- STAR Reduces VT Burden: Interim results from the STOPSTORM registry demonstrated that stereotactic arrhythmia radioablation reduces median ventricular tachycardia burden by 80%. Among the study’s 193 patients, 72% of six-month survivors remained free from ICD shocks. While the one-year survival probability was only 77%, investigators reported only a few serious adverse events, including pericardial effusion and acute coronary complications.
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Making the Leap to Outsource Post-Processing
Interested in how to outsource cardiac image post-processing, but not sure where to start? PIA walks you through how to assess and compare vendors, understand pricing models and payment options, and outline your requirements to identify vendors who meet your clinical needs.
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CA Diagnosis Using Echo AI
Diagnosing cardiac amyloidosis using echo can be challenging due to the imaging overlap between CA and more prevalent causes of cardiomyopathy. Read more about how Us2.ai’s echocardiographic score and fully automated deep-learning model overcome this challenge to enable better diagnosis.
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The Power of AI in Cardiovascular Imaging
Cardiac labs are under more pressure than ever to deliver more with greater speed and precision. Hear from Tony Gallagher, Director of Noninvasive Cardiology at Baptist Health Lexington about how Siemens Healthineers’ ACUSON Origin is reshaping daily practice and transforming the future of echocardiography.
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- Merge Hemo Ranks 2026 Best in KLAS: Merge Hemo ranked 2026 Best in KLAS for cardiology hemodynamics, marking the 14th year it’s been named a category leader. Find out more about why Merge’s strategy of a modular, unified imaging solutions portfolio continues to dominate the KLAS rankings, year in, year out.
- Identify and Treat Cardiovascular Disease: Complex care pathways make getting patients to the next step a challenge. See how Tempus Next, an AI enabled care pathway platform, helps providers identify and reduce under treatment in cardiovascular disease by adding an intelligent layer onto their routinely generated EHR data.
- RoR in the Real World with Monebo and UNCG: Strenuous exercise can significantly reduce people’s heart relaxation reserve, putting them at risk without preliminary warning signs. Find out how Monebo’s new Reserve of Relaxation technology provides a crucial tool for anyone looking to enhance their physical performance without harm.
- CMR Access Is Broken — Here’s How to Fix It: Cardiac MRI is one of the most powerful tools for diagnosing heart disease, yet it’s still out of reach for many patients. Download Vista AI’s new infographic to see what’s holding CMR adoption back—and how AI and automation can help make gold-standard imaging more accessible than ever.
- Earlier Detection, Better Outcomes: When it comes to heart disease, early detection is crucial to a patient’s long-term health. Learn more about how Fujifilm helps clinicians achieve that with the Lisendo 880 cardiovascular ultrasound system’s unique solutions that detect early abnormalities seen in heart failure, while offering insight into cardiac functions and groundbreaking hemodynamic analysis.
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