A handful of late-breaking clinical trials to be presented this week during the American Heart Association's annual scientific session in Chicago could significantly change the way cardiac patients are treated.
One study looks at the best treatment plan for patients with moderate mitral regurgitation, a condition in which blood leaks backward through the mitral valve. There is clear guidance on what to do with patients who either have a lot of leakage or very little. But treatment is less clear for those in the middle.
“I think this trial is going to be one of the definitive studies to address the best way to approach this,” said
Dr. Frank Sellke, incoming chairman of the association's council on scientific sessions programming and chief of cardiothoracic surgery at Brown University Medical School.
Other hot session topics at the conference, which runs Nov. 15-19 and is expected to draw 20,000 attendees, include the use of dual antiplatelet therapy after implantation of a drug-eluting stent, and the comparative effectiveness of different options for treating young patients with aortic aneurysms.
Several sessions will explore using analysis of “big data” to improve the value of care. Sellke predicts cardiac care will be a leading clinical area for the use of such data analyses. “This is going to play a very vital role in how healthcare delivery is going to change,” he said. He hopes to increase the focus in future conference sessions on the economics of cardiac care.
