ACC 2022 to Address DEI, COVID-19, and Technology in Heart Health

The American College of Cardiology's (ACC) 71st Scientific Session will kick off its annual meeting this Friday, April 1, and will host both an in-person and virtual conference through Monday, April 4, 2022. In-person events will be held in Washington DC, and feature a host of scientific sessions, late-breaking clinical trials, and clinical spotlight sessions.

Session themes range from addressing the impact of social determinants of health on cardiovascular outcomes to understanding the latest developments in digital health.

Presentations will focus on a variety of topics, including sex differences in heart health with one session titled, “Sex Specific Differences in Aortic Valve Composition Quantified from Computed Tomography Angiography in Severe Aortic Stenosis,” and another called “Cardiac Interventions and Pregnancy.”

The conference will also feature activities related to diversity, equity and inclusion, including a Town Hall on the topic, a session on ethics in cardiovascular care, and one examining the global burden of hypertension.

Additional investigations into the association of extreme heat and cardiovascular health and the effects of skin tone on accuracy of heart rate measurement will also be highlighted, along with research on exposure to transportation noise and its potential link with myocardial infarction hospitalizations in New Jersey.

On the pharmacological side, new research on mavacamten, sotagliflozin, vericiguat, and empagliflozin will be presented, in addition to late-breaking research on icosapent ethyl and omecamtiv mecarbil.

Abstracts will include new data on the role of COVID-19 in heart health, with particular focus on atrial fibrillation risk and the effects of long-COVID-19 syndrome. Several abstracts delve into the role of artificial intelligence in cardiology, with one presentation assessing how machine learning can assess racial disparities in COVID-19 mortality and morbidity.

The conference comes after a string of recent approvals in heart failure, including that of empagliflozin for patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF)—a condition with a poor prognosis and very limited treatment options.

Sacubitril and valsartan is the only other therapy approved for HFpEF, despite the fact it narrowly missed achieving superiority in a critical phase 3 trial.

A session on the latest clinical guidance in heart failure care chaired by David E. Lanfear, MD, section head of Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Cardiology at Henry Ford Hospital, and Nasrien E. Ibrahim, MD, director of Heart Failure and Clinical Research at Inova Heart and Vascular Institute, will likely discuss these updates.

Featured keynote speakers include Dariush Mozaffarian, MD; FACC, Fatima Rodriguez, MD, MPH, FACC; Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, MACC; Daniel J. Penny, MD, FACC; and Peter Libby, MD, FACC.