East Anglian cardiovascular seminar series

Bringing together the cardiovascular clinical community to share best practice and discuss the latest advice from expert partners.

This seminar series is for healthcare professionals across primary, secondary and tertiary care who look after patients with, or at high risk of developing, atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Each online seminar focuses on best management of each of the cardiovascular risk factors and of the patient groups at risk.

How to access these seminars

These recordings are intended only for healthcare professionals and as such are password protected. To gain access and to hear about future seminars, please contact nick.pringle@healthinnovationeast.co.uk.

Seminar 6: Familial Hypercholesterolaemia (FH) Identification

7 March 2023

Without treatment, FH can lead to heart disease at a very young age and people with undetected FH are four times as likely to have a heart attack or stroke than the general population. Unlike most genetic disorders, FH is entirely treatable, especially following the widespread availability of potent lipid-lowering agents such as statins. Therefore, detection is key and early and sustained therapy to lower LDL cholesterol can normalise this risk and prevent premature CVD.

In England, the NHS Long Term Plan has recently prioritised finding more of these undiagnosed patients and offering them treatment. Yet, the task of finding these people and their families, many of whom may be otherwise well, is enormously challenging for a multitude of reasons. In this seminar, we are joined by Dr Paul Flynn, Dr Kate Downes, Dr Javier Gomez and Shelina Rajan who provide practical information to help healthcare professionals increase the identification of FH in their working areas.

Seminar 5: Heart failure – what’s new

Tuesday 19 April 2022

Heart failure – what’s new (an overview of the latest guidelines in management of heart failure).

Dr Pegah Salahshouri was appointed as a consultant cardiologist at West Suffolk Hospital and Royal Papworth hospital in 2012. Having graduated in 2000, she completed her cardiology training in Cambridge, sub-specialising in Heart Failure and cardiac devices. She has been the clinical lead for cardiology at West Suffolk Hospital for the past nine years. In that time she has developed and expanded the cardiac services, introducing invasive coronary angiography, simple and complex pacing to the region. In 2020 she was appointed cardiovascular advisor to Health Innovation East .

Seminar 4: Hypertension – still the biggest killer – diagnosis and management

21 September 2021, 6-7pm

Ian Wilkinson is a Professor of Therapeutics at the University of Cambridge and Honorary Consultant Physician at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. He helps deliver the ESH-accredited regional hypertension service, and runs a joint obstetric/clinical pharmacology antenatal hypertension clinic. Over the last 25 years, his research has focused on understanding the mechanisms of hypertension, with a particular focus of aortic stiffening and systolic hypertension. He has authored over 260 peer reviewed papers and currently directs the Cambridge Clinical Trials Unit. Together with colleagues in Cambridge and London he is running the MRC/BHF AIMHY clinical trial that will define the best mono and dual antihypertensive therapy for different ethnic groups in the UK. 2022 will see the launch of a large Wellcome Trust funded study – POPPY – which will help us understand why women who develop hypertension in pregnancy have a much higher risk of developing fixed hypertension and a significant excess burden of cardiovascular disease.

Seminar 3: Trustworthy communication of risk and uncertainty: the Covid experience

27 April 2021

David Spiegelhalter is Chair of the Winton Centre for Risk & Evidence Communication, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, University of Cambridge.

Seminar 2: Combination Antithrombotic Therapy – Ensuring Safety and Optimising Efficacy

9 December 2020, 6pm – 7.30 PM

Keynote speaker Dr Unni Krishnan, Consultant Cardiologist at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Royal Papworth Hospital. A practical overview of the evidence and guidelines that support the use of combination antithrombotic therapy in patients who have a clinical indication for concurrent use of long term anticoagulant therapy as well as antiplatelet therapy for atherosclerotic vascular disease. With a primary focus on patients with non-valvular AF or VTE who also have a history of CAD, and in particular percutaneous coronary revascularisation, the talk also addressed key areas such as perioperative management of antithrombotic therapy, risk stratification of an individual patient’s ischaemic vs bleeding risk and the role of NOACs in supplementing or substituting antiplatelet therapy in patients who do not otherwise require the use of anticoagulant therapy. The role of these antithrombotic agents in cerebrovascular or peripheral vascular disease would be better addressed by experts in these respective clinical domains.

Seminar 1: Lipids and Cardiovascular Risk: Whom, What and How to Treat?

20 October, 2020 6pm – 7.30pm

This seminar with Dr Paul Flynn, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, covered a review of recent guidelines, the criteria and pathway for genetic testing for suspected monogenic familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH), the eligibility criteria and pathway for starting PCSK9 inhibitors and the referral pathways for advice and review in the region’s lipid clinics.

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