Cardiac Consult: A Cleveland Clinic Podcast for Healthcare Professionals

Dr. Deborah Kwon Director of MRI in the Miller Family Heart & Vascular Institute at Cleveland Clinic answers questions about cardiac MRI: what is the best use? When should contrast be ordered? What is the latest research involving cardiac MRI? And - what clinicians should know about ordering MRI.

Dr. Allan Klein, Director of the Cleveland Clinic Pericardial Disease Center introduces pericarditis cases, a discussion of various types of pericarditis including presentation, imaging, pathology, treatment and considerations. Jay Ramchand, MD, Cardiovascular Medicine Fellow presents two cases of transient pericarditis. Dr. Paul Cremer moderates a panel including cardiac surgeon Shinya Unai, MD, cardiologists and imaging specialists Dr. Christine Jellis and Dr. Deborah Kwon, and pathologist Dr. Carmela Tan addressing surgical treatment, and advanced imaging.

Mazen Hanna, MD, Co-Director of the Cleveland Clinic’s Amyloidosis Center talks about the FDA’s recent approval of the drug Tafamidis for the treatment of ATTR Amyloidosis (also known as Amyloid Transthyretin Amyloidosis), the research behind it, what this medication does, and what this means for patients.

Richard Grimm, DO, Director of the Echocardiography Laboratory, and Helga Lombardo, RDCS, FASE Supervisor, Echocardiography Lab, discuss many aspects of running a successful high volume echo lab.

Dr. Milind Desai, Medical Director of the Aorta Center, discusses a recently published paper looking at a series of asymptomatic middle aged males who underwent chest computed tomographyalong with coronary artery calcium scoring as part of a comprehensive primary prevention evaluation. About 16% had a dilated aortic root when indexed to height. Dr. Desai discusses the implications of these findings. Study can be reviewed in Circulation. 2018;139:557–558

A. Michael Lincoff, MD, Director of the Cleveland Clinic Coordinating Center for Clinical Research (C5Research), reviews the results from clinical trials presented at the 2019 American College of Cardiology Conference focusing on three major practice areas: 1) the use of transcatheter aortic valves (TAVR) in low risk patients (PARTNER 3, Evolut Low); 2) electrophysiology studies (Apple Heart, WRAP-IT) ; and 3) anti-thrombotic therapies in patients with atrial fibrillation, acute coronary syndrome or percutaneous intervention (AUGUSTUS, GLASSY). Dr. Lincoff summarizes the studies’ design and results, and provides insight into the potential impact on future care of patients based on these outcomes.

Luke Laffin, MD, cardiologist in the Section of Preventive Cardiology at Cleveland Clinic discusses his recently published paper with Stephanie Besser, MSA, MSPA, and Francis Alenghat, MD, PhD, from the University of Chicago which dove into the results of the SPRINT and ACCORD-BP trials to answer the question if trial results looking at a specific population of patients can apply to specific patients in clinic. The team developed a tool to answer this question.

Steven Nissen, MD talks with Daniel Cantillon, MD, staff electrophysiologist and Medical Director for Cleveland Clinic’s Central Monitoring Unit about advanced approaches to telemetry monitoring for hospitalized patients. Dr. Cantillon leads a large central monitoring unit with sophisticated technology and risk stratification tools, triage algorithms and protocols and a well-trained staff. Dr. Cantillon and Dr. Nissen discuss the factors measured, what goes into the algorithms and how this type of technology can prevent emergency events – or allow for treatment before an emergency event occurs; as well as hopes for future technology and research.

Dr. Venu Menon, Director of the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit and the Cardiovascular Fellowship Program talks with Dr. Anirudh Kumar, a second year cardiovascular fellow about his recent research related to two high risk populations of STEMI patients, those with cardiogenic shock and those who present with cardiac arrest who underwent PCI. The findings were shared related to short and long-term outcomes in these two patient populations. In addition, he describes how and if new STEMI protocols had an impact on these high risk patients.

Eric Roselli, MD, Director of the Aorta Center at Cleveland Clinic leads the discussion on treatment of bicuspid aortic valve (BAV) disease. Joanna Ghobrial, MD discusses family screening; Leonardo Rodriguez, MD reviews clinical presentation; Milind Desai, M D discusses imaging; Douglas Johnston, MD covers valve choice in the young patient; Amar Krishnaswamy, MD & Samir Kapadia, MD covers patient candidates for TAVR and valve-in-valve; and finally Vidyasagar Kalahasti, MD discusses connective tissue disorders in bicuspid aortic valve disease. After listening, join us for the Tall Rounds® presentation on Bicuspid Aortic Valve Disease.