Healio.com to provide live coverage from AHA 2014

The Cardiology Today, Cardiology Today’s Intervention and Healio.com/Cardiology team will provide live coverage from the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions, beginning Sunday, Nov. 16.

Late-breaking clinical trials

The conference will feature four topic-specific late-breaking clinical trial sessions, during which 16 of a submitted 100 late-breaking trials will be presented. At a press conference prior to the meeting, Robert Harrington, MD, FAHA, chair of the Scientific Sessions Program Committee, discussed some of the major research to be highlighted at the conference.

Robert Harrington

"We anticipate that [the DAPT trial] will be one of the major highlights of the meeting, given how long people have been waiting for this trial to be completed," Harrington said during the briefing. The DAPT trial assessed the risks and benefits of prolonged treatment following drug-eluting stent implantation.

Other anticipated highlights from the late-breaking clinical trial sessions include:

ISAR-SAFE, which compared 6- and 12-month DAPT regimens after implantation of a drug-eluting stent.
Italic/Italic+, which assessed the noninferiority of 6- vs. 12-month DAPT after DES implantation.
FACTOR-64, a randomized trial that evaluated screening for asymptomatic obstructive CAD via CT in high-risk patients with diabetes.
ODYSSEY ALTERNATIVE, a comparison of alirocumab (Sanofi/Regeneron) vs. ezetimibe (Zetia, Merck) in statin-intolerant patients.
IMPROVE-IT, which compared combination therapy with ezetimibe and simvastatin vs. simvastatin alone on CV outcomes following ACS.
INHERIT, which assessed losartan in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
A randomized trial that compared atenolol vs. losartan in children and young adults with Marfan syndrome.
AVOID, an assessment of oxygen therapy in patients with acute STEMI.
EVOLVE II, which evaluated use of a bioabsorbable, polymer-coated everolimus-eluting stent.

“There are a number of topics being addressed here that are frequently underrepresented in clinical studies," Harrington said. “These are important, albeit sometimes small, populations that don't necessarily get the attention that they warrant in large-scale clinical trials. We are quite pleased there are a number of these [trials] to be presented at the sessions."

Other highlights

The AHA Scientific Sessions will also feature five Clinical Science: Special Reports sessions on topics including CVD management; trial and registry updates from PARADIGM-HF and TOPCAT, and new findings from the ODYSSEY clinical trial program.

Along with major research presentations, attendees can listen to noteworthy lectures, including the AHA presidential address, “Saving and Improving Lives in the Information Age,” by Elliott Antman, MD; a keynote lecture on the current state of CVD prevention by Lynne Braun, PhD; and a lecture by Former Vice President Dick Cheney, “The LVAD and Daily Life: The Patient Experience.”

Our team will report onsite in Chicago throughout the Scientific Sessions, which will conclude on Nov. 19. Visit Healio.com/Cardiology during the conference and beyond for breaking news, video perspectives from experts in the field on major trial results, and more. Follow our live updates on Twitter at @CardiologyToday.