Cardiac Consult: A Cleveland Clinic Podcast for Healthcare Professionals

Luke Laffin, MD, Medical Director of Cardiac Rehabilitation and cardiologist in the Section of Preventive Cardiology at Cleveland Clinic talks about two related abstracts recently presented at the American Heart Association’s Hypertension Scientific Sessions focused on resistant hypertension in a cardiac rehabilitation program. Dr. Laffin defines resistant hypertension, the prevalence of resistant hypertension in a cardiac rehabilitation setting, factors associated with patients who have resistant hypertension, and lessons learned about this patient population.

Dr. Lee Kirksey, Vascular Surgeon and Vice Chairman of Vascular Surgery and Dr. Sean Lyden, MD, Chairman, Department of Vascular Surgery at Cleveland Clinic’s Sydell and Arnold Miller Family Heart & Vascular Institute discuss the changes in operative strategies for aortic aneurysm repair. As the national trend shows an increase in EVAR and decline in open repair, is it time to review current training programs to see if there is a need for specialized training in complex open aortic repair in high volume centers?

Dr. Daniel Cantillon discusses their analysis of ECG recordings of over 24,000 patients from the PRECISION study. They found that left bundle branch block (LBBB) and left intraventricular conduction defect (LIVCD) is an important risk factor for increased mortality in patients at risk for cardiovascular disease.

Dr. Venu Menon, Director of the Cardiovascular Fellowship Program and Section Head, Clinical Cardiology and Chetan Huded MD, Interventional Fellow discuss incidence of stroke up to 30 days after TAVR. Dr. Huded published his findings in JAMA . Drs. Menon and Huded discuss the patient population, pulled from the TVT registry and what the findings mean for clinical practice.

Dr. Venu Menon, Director of the Cardiovascular Fellowship Program and Section Head, Clinical Cardiology discusses with Erika Hutt, MD a first year cardiovascular fellow the use of the WATCHMAN, a left atrial appendage closure device, in patients with prior intracranial hemorrhage. Her study was recently published in Heart Rhythm. Drs. Menon and Hutt talk about the study, the patient population as well as the findings and what this means for this patient population in the future.

Dr. Venu Menon, Director of the Cardiovascular Fellowship Program and Section Head, Clinical Cardiology talks with Eoin Donnellen MD, a third year cardiovascular fellow about the impact of radiation induced aortic stenosis on treatment. Dr. Donnellen first describes a paper looking at Aortic Valve Replacement in patients who had had mediastinal radiation vs. those who did not have radiation . His second study looked at outcomes of TAVR in patients with mediastinal radiation associated aortic stenosis. Drs. Menon and Donnellen discuss the findings of both studies and the clinical implications

Dr. Venu Menon, Director of the Cardiovascular Fellowship Program and Section Head, Clinical Cardiology talks with Eoin Donnellen MD, a third year cardiovascular fellow about his recently published paper that looked at pre-ablation bariatric surgery and its impact on the recurrence of atrial fibrillation following atrial fibrillation ablation.

Dr. Steven Nissen, Chief Academic Officer, Sydell and Arnold Miller Family Heart & Vascular Institute talks with Dr. Leslie Cho, Section Head Preventive Cardiology & Rehabilitation about LDL cholesterol and statin intolerance. They discuss the full range of options available and what is in the future for LDL management. Then, Dr. Nissen describes the latest Lipoprotein a (also called Lp (a)) – what it is, why it’s important and a new research trial addressing this new frontier in lipid management.

Dr. Lee Kirksey, Vascular Surgeon and Vice Chairman of Vascular Surgery talks with Dr. David Hardy, Department of Vascular Surgery and Dr. Tushar Vachharajany, Nephrology and Hypertension about the challenges of dialysis access. Topics include vascular access at Cleveland Clinic, what should go into the planning and implementation of vascular access, approaches to decrease catheter exposure, graft types, the multidisciplinary care of dialysis patients, many who have cardiovascular and kidney disease, challenges of management and care of patients who have urgent needs.

Jerome Adams, M.D., MPH, Surgeon General of the United States and Cleveland City Council Member Blaine Griffin joined five leading Cleveland Clinic physicians to discuss the opioid epidemic during the Sydell and Arnold Miller Family Heart & Vascular Institute Grand Rounds.