The Heart Team at AHA 2022: Inflammatory Biomarkers and Applying New Trial Data, with Paul Ridker, MD

The name Paul Ridker, MD, could be found throughout the late-breaking sessions hosted at the American Heart Association 2022 (AHA 2022) Scientific Sessions. Ridker, who is the director of the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention, a translational research unit at Brigham and Women's Hospital, played an integral role in both the PROMINENT and SPORT trials.

In the double-blinded, randomized, controlled PROMINENT trial, investigators found a triglyceride-lowering strategy leveraging use of pemfibrate did not reduce risk of the study’s composite endpoint of fatal and nonfatal cardiovascular events despite a marked reduction in triglycerides. In SPORT, investigators compared statin therapy against 6 nutritional supplements and placebo therapy among a cohort of primary prevention patients. Results of SPORT demonstrate the selected nutritional supplements provided no benefit in terms of LDL-C lowering while use of 5 mg statin therapy was associated with an average LDL-C reduction of 37.9% after 28 days.

As part of their time on-site at AHA 2022, The Heart Team hosts Jorge Plutzky, MD, director of preventive cardiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Michael Farkouh, MD, Peter Munk Chair in Multinational Clinical Trials at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, recorded 4 special edition episodes with leaders in cardiovascular medicine, including Ridker.

During the episode, Ridker discusses some of his recent work and takes hosts on a deep dive into use of inflammatory biomarkers for identifying patients with residual inflammatory risk. Later in the episode, Ridker provides perspective on use of MACE compared with all-cause mortality in clinical trials of cardiovascular medications and the optimization of uptake for SGLT2 inhibitors in care.