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ACC.18 focuses on innovation in CV treatment, education
The upcoming American College of Cardiology Scientific Session will feature presentations on important advancements made in diagnosing and treating patients with CV-related conditions.
The 3-day meeting will take place March 10 to 12 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida.
“We are excited about many different areas in cardiovascular medicine where we see innovation, some of those that we anticipate discussing at the meeting in multiple venues of things such as inflammation as a risk factor and anti-inflammatory agents as therapy,” Mary Norine Walsh, MD, FACC, president of the ACC, medical director of the heart failure and transplantation program at St. Vincent Heart Center in Indianapolis and a Cardiology Today Editorial Board Member, said in the briefing.
Major topics
Other areas that will be focused on throughout the meeting are the expansion of care, which involves caring for patients with diabetes and the new care models for those with cancer, PCSK9 inhibitors, wearable technology, clinician well-being, cardio-oncology teams and health care delivery models.
This year’s meeting will also have a stronger emphasis on social media.
“We’ve always had a lot of social media attention around the meeting, but we’re going to be very proactive in our own pushing to the social media by having each of the pathways with people tweeting about them,” Walsh said. “These are not just random attendees that happen to want to tweet, but experts in the pathways who will be tweeting.”
Over the last few years, the meeting has evolved from presentations solely on innovation in CV medicine to now include sessions on innovation in education.
“The meeting has taken on a whole new world in terms of how we incorporate the members, the audience, and think about different ways to educate,” Jeffrey T. Kuvin, MD, FACC, chief of the section of cardiovascular medicine at the Heart and Vascular Center at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire, professor of medicine at Dartmouth College Geisel School of Medicine in Hanover, New Hampshire and chair of the meeting, said in the briefing.
This year’s keynotes, previously called special lectures, will focus on less lecturing and more learning, Kuvin said. Nanette K. Wenger, MD, MACC, MACP, FAHA, professor of medicine (emeritus) at Emory University School of Medicine, consultant at Emory Heart and Vascular Center and a Cardiology Today Editorial Board Member, will discuss CVD in women in the Simon Dack Keynote.
“There’s really no one better than Nanette to talk about the past, present and future of cardiovascular disease in women, and as we all know, this is an incredibly timely subject,” Kuvin said.
Topics of other keynote lectures given by cardiologists include topics CV intervention and congenital heart disease.
The meeting will have intensive sessions that originated 4 to 5 years ago. These serve as mini-courses to educate cardiologists on education innovation. The three topics that will be covered this year are CV innovation, adult congenital heart disease for the general cardiologist and shared decision making.
New at this year’s meeting is a stage called Heart to Heart, located in the Lounge and Learn area. Some of the topics are social media presence, maintaining CV certification, healthy lifestyle and managing prior authorizations.
“The concept of this is there are a lot of topics that don’t reach our typical sessions,” Kuvin said. “These are topics that I think a lot of cardiovascular professionals want to learn about and want to have a conversation about.”
Clinical trial data
Throughout the meeting, there will be 20 late-breaking clinical trials, 17 featured clinical research presentations and 2,719 abstracts for poster sessions and oral presentations. On Saturday, March 10, one of the late-breaking clinical trials that will be presented is ODYSSEY Outcomes, which focuses on CV outcomes in patients with ACS who were treated with the PCSK9 inhibitor alirocumab (Praluent, Sanofi/Regeneron).
“[ODYSSEY Outcomes] is really going to be exciting,” Andrew Kates, MD, FACC, cardiology fellowship program director and professor of medicine at Washington University in St. Louis and vice chair of the meeting, said in the briefing. “The data that comes out really will influence practice. It can change practice and potentially change guidelines.”
VEST, which will also be presented on Saturday, is a trial that analyzes the effects of wearable cardioverter defibrillators on patients after MI who are at high risk for arrhythmias.
“Importantly with both of these trials, it really spans the spectrum of cardiovascular care and interests all cardiologists,” Kates said.
Other trials presented throughout the meeting that may change clinical practice include the following:
- ARTEMIS reviewed the effects of affordability of antiplatelet treatment on patients after an MI;
- MOMENTUM-3 compared the 2-year data of patients undergoing mechanical circulatory support therapy with HeartMate 3 (Abbott/St. Jude Medical) vs. HeartMate II (Abbott/St. Jude Medical); and
- ANNEXA-4 analyzed the effects of andexanet alfa (AndexXa, Portola), a novel antidote for direct oral anticoagulants.
“Each of these in their own way promises to be practice changing, and just how that will change our practice really depends upon the data that get presented,” Kates said.
Cardiology Today and Cardiology Today’s Intervention will provide live coverage from the ACC Scientific Session, including video interviews and much more. For more information on the ACC Scientific Session agenda and registration, visit accscientificsession.acc.org. – by Darlene Dobkowski