42 cardiology firsts in 2022

Here are 42 cardiology firsts Becker's covered in 2022:

1. 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.
   
   
2. 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.
   
   
3. 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.
   
   
4. Chicago-based Northwestern Medicine's Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute became the first in Illinois to successfully transplant a heart donated after circulatory death.
   
   
5. Minneapolis-based Allina Health opened the state's first cardiovascular ASC.
   
   
6. Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Healthcare became the first system in Utah to perform a new lifesaving heart procedure.
   
   
7. Long Beach (Calif.) Medical Center became the first facility in the nation to use a new heart biopsy device.
   
   
8. Tulsa-based Oklahoma Heart Institute cardiologists were the first in the world to use a new heart valve implant.
   
   
9. Bernard Lown, MD, inventor of the direct-current defibrillator, will likely be featured on the U.S. dollar coin in 2024.
   
   
10. Chapel Hill, N.C.-based UNC Children's Hospital implanted its first artificial heart into a 5-month-old girl with severe heart failure.
    
    
11. Hattiesburg, Miss.-based Forrest Health and Hattiesburg Clinic partnered to open Mississippi's first outpatient heart surgery center.
    
    
12. Minneapolis-based cardiologist Elizabeth Klodas, MD, created foods designed to fight heart disease.
    
    
13. 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.
    
    
14. 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.
    
    
15. 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.
    
    
16. University of Louisville (Ky.) Health's Jewish Hospital is the first heart hospital in the region.
    
    
17. Marietta, Ga.-based Wellstar Health System implanted the state's first thoracic branched endograft Aug. 22.
    
    
18. Hackensack (N.J.) University Medical Center became the second hospital in the world to implant the Impella Bridge-to-Recovery heart pump.
    
    
19. 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.
    
    
20. 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.
    
    
21. Davie, Fla.-based HCA Florida University Hospital completed its first minimally invasive thrombectomy to treat pulmonary embolism.
    
    
22. St. Cloud (Minn.) Hospital became the first in the world to remove a heart tumor without open heart surgery.
    
    
23. Iowa's first implant of a new leadless and retrievable pacemaker was performed at Des Moines-based MercyOne Iowa Heart Center.
    
    
24. 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.
    
    
25. 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.
    
    
26. Children's Hospital Colorado recently became the first hospital in the world to implant the newly FDA-approved G-Armor stent.
    
    
27. Washington, D.C.-based MedStar Washington Hospital Center performed the first robotic mitral valve surgery in the region.
    
    
28. 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.
    
    
29. 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.
    
    
30. 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.
    
    
31. Atlantic Health System's Morristown (N.J.) Medical Center launched the first hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and sports cardiology fellowship in the U.S.
    
    
32. 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.
    
    
33. 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.
    
    
34. Cheyenne (Wyo.) Regional Medical Center became the first in the state to use Shockwave technology in a calcified coronary plaque procedure.
    
    
35. Physicians at Rady Children's Hospital in Encinitas, Calif., performed the hospital's first dual heart and kidney transplant.
    
    
36. Durham, N.C.-based Duke Health performed the world's first dual heart-thymus transplant procedure in August 2021.
    
    
37. A dual-chamber leadless pacemaker system was implanted in the first U.S. patient as part of a global clinical trial at Cleveland Clinic.
    
    
38. 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.
    
    
39. 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.
    
    
40. 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.
    
    
41. The Vascular Care Group in Leominster, Mass., became the first in the state to complete a percutaneous femoral-popliteal artery bypass procedure.
    
    
42. 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.