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ASPC Congress focuses on implementing prevention strategies into clinical practice
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Putting the prevention of CVD into practice based on recent guidelines and studies is one of the many topics that will be discussed at this year’s American Society for Preventive Cardiology Congress on CVD Prevention.
The 3-day meeting will take place Friday to Sunday at La Cantera Resort and Spa in San Antonio. Expert course sessions are scheduled for Thursday and Friday.
“There are a lot of theoretical concepts around prevention, but when we think about how do we practically implement those things, be it in our clinics and our health care systems or in our communities, that’s the focus: putting prevention into practice as we look at guidelines and strategies,” Amit Khera, MD, MSc, FACC, FAHA, professor of internal medicine, director of the UT Southwestern Preventive Cardiology Program and president of the American Society for Preventive Cardiology (ASPC), told Cardiology Today.
Although sessions throughout the meeting will be of interest to anyone interested in CVD such as patients, researchers, payers and people from industry, this meeting will be particularly valuable for practitioners, according to Khera.
“We hope the information presented will be actionable for the clinician,” Khera said in an interview. “We think of our congress as a way to bring science together with practical strategies and evolving information on how to prevent cardiovascular disease.”
A major session of interest will be a keynote lecture from Deepak Bhatt, MD, MPH, executive director of interventional cardiovascular programs at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and Cardiology Today Editorial Board Member, who will discuss the REDUCE-IT trial.
“It has been a game changer of a study,” Khera told Cardiology Today. “We want to learn more about it and understand how we may think about applying the lessons from it in our practice.”
Other conference highlights will include the following:
- Valentin Fuster , MD, PhD, director of Mount Sinai Heart and physician-in-chief of The Mount Sinai Hospital, will deliver the Honorary ASPC Fellowship Lecture, which will focus on the evolving science of health.
- A session on the prevention guidelines, with a talk by Roger S. Blumenthal, MD, director of the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Cardiology Today Prevention Section Editor, who will discuss a comprehensive approach to atherosclerotic CVD prevention, followed by practical cases to review the concepts with an expert panel.
- Michael Shapiro, DO, FACC, FASPC, associate professor of medicine and radiology and director of the atherosclerosis imaging program of the Knight Cardiovascular Institute at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland; Pam R. Taub, MD, FACC, FASPC, associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine; and Howard Weintraub, MD, clinical professor of medicine and clinical director of the NYU Center for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, will present case examples during a session on the practice of preventive cardiology and how to make it financially sound.
- The Joseph Stokes III Award lecture will be given by Daniel Levy, MD, senior investigator for the population sciences branch for the NHLBI.
- Martha Gulati, MD, MS, FACC, FAHA, division chief of cardiology at University of Arizona College of Medicine Phoenix, physician executive director for the Banner University Medicine Heart Institute and editor-in-chief of ACC CardioSmart, will give the Nanette Wenger lecture on women and CVD.
“We certainly believe that prevention is the way forward for multiple aspects of cardiovascular disease. We usually think of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, but let’s not forget that prevention is now becoming a major focus for heart failure and atrial fibrillation, with the most recent [atrial fibrillation] guidelines spotlighting preventive strategies,” Khera said.
Although this is a smaller meeting, that is one of the characteristics that makes this meeting different from others, Khera said.
“People will enjoy the environment and the location, but equally as much because it’s a bit of a smaller meeting on purpose,” Khera added. “It gives people the opportunity to interact with one another and engage. You’re going to bump into people who are top leaders in the field and have that personal interaction, which makes it even more special.”
Cardiology Today and Healio staff will provide coverage from ASPC, including reports on the sessions described above and others, on-site video interviews and much more. Follow along at this link and on Twitter in the @CardiologyToday feed. For more information on the ASPC, visit www.aspconline.org. – by Darlene Dobkowski
Disclosure: Khera is president of the ASPC.