Health Equity, CRISPR Results Among Topics to Be Covered at AHA 2022

The annual meeting of the American Heart Association (AHA) will feature sessions on topics in the cardiology field, with health equity and the results of a study involving gene editing receiving particular focus.

AHA will host its annual conference in Chicago, Illinois, from Saturday, November 5, to Monday, November 7. All sessions will be provided in-person with select sessions to be broadcast live online.

Health equity will take a front seat in the sessions presented at the conference, with over 20 sessions on the topic throughout the 3-day conference.

One such session is entitled, “Global Innovations to Transform the Medical Workforce: Addressing Unmet Cardiovascular and Other Health Needs.” The panel of leaders of several prestigious universities and AHA President Michelle A. Albert, MD, MPH, FACC, FAHA, will discuss challenges and strategies related to preparing the workforce to equitably address the social, economic, and health needs of diverse populations. This session is 1 of the main events of the conference.

The results of a study that tested the first-in-human in vivo CRISPR/Cas9 editing of the TTR gene will also be presented at the AHA conference on November 5. These results will be presented alongside a trial on treating long-term iron-deficiency in heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF), another trial on improving patient outcomes and access to care for heart failure, and a trial on the early results of patient-reported outcome measurements in a heart failure clinic. These trials, which will be presented at the “Late Breaking Science: Breakthrough Strategies in the HF Journey” panel, could have implications on future treatment of heart failure.

A panel on the 2022 AHA/ACC/HFSA guideline for management of heart failure will be held on November 7. This panel will discuss the novel evidence-based drug therapy for HFrEF, heart failure with mid-range ejection fraction, and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction and the recommendations that have been incorporated into the heart failure clinical practice guidelines for 2022.

A panel toward the end of the conference on November 7 will present the results from a trial that evaluated the efficacy and safety of baxdrostat, a selective aldosterone synthase inhibitor, in patients with treatment-resistant hypertension. The results of the study bring attention to a new class of hypertension drugs to use in treatment.

Other trials presented at the AHA conference include a study aimed on determining the generalizability of vericiguat in US clinical practice after its approval by the FDA to reduce risk of cardiovascular death and hospitalization for heart failure. This trial used the results of the VICTORIA trial to determine generalizability of outcomes to success.

The AHA conference will close on Monday, November 7, with a panel summarizing the trending topics from the conference, which will conclude at 5:30 PM CST.