37: ESC 2026 Hot Line Recap: 3 Trials Every Pharmacist Needs

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Telltale Heart, the Pharmacist Cardiovascular Digest.

I'm your host, Dr. Craig Beavers.

You've noticed we've had a gap in episodes, and part of that was because I was trying to wait for the European Society of Cardiology Congress that opened up this weekend in Munich, Germany.

And today we're directly going to talk about the first hotline sessions that were presented overnight for us in America.

And this was quite a way to start the meeting.

Five trials were presented this morning that touch almost every corner of cardiovascular practice.

Cardiac amyloidosis, atrial fibrillation anticoagulation, infective endocarditis, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and prevention of sudden cardiac death.

And we're going to really talk about first two trials and then really about hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

The five trials that were presented are CardioTransform, evaluating plantaroscin and ATTR cardiomyopathy.

Single AF, asking whether we should anticoagulate patients with atrial fibrillation who have traditionally been considered at only intermediate risk for stroke.

POET2, challenging how long we actually need to treat select patients with infective endocarditis.

Acadia HCM, evaluating african and symptomatic non-obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

And CMR guide asking whether cardiac MRI can identify those with ejection fractions above 35% who nevertheless benefit from ICD.

We won't talk about that trial really in depth.

What I do want to do in this episode is go beyond simply telling you what each trial was positive or negative.

We're going to talk about what actually was studied, what the results were, what the limitations are, how I interpret these findings, and perhaps most importantly for the podcast, what does this mean for pharmacists and cardiovascular clinicians taking care of their patients? And there are some surprises here, so let's get started.

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Telltale Heart, the Pharmacist Cardiovascular Digest.

I'm your host, Dr. Craig Beavers.

You've noticed we've had a gap in episodes, and part of that was because I was trying to wait for the European Society of Cardiology Congress that opened up this weekend in Munich, Germany.

And today we're directly going to talk about the first hotline sessions that were presented overnight for us in America.

And this was quite a way to start the meeting.

Five trials were presented this morning that touch almost every corner of cardiovascular practice.

Cardiac amyloidosis, atrial fibrillation anticoagulation, infective endocarditis, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and prevention of sudden cardiac death.

And we're going to really talk about first two trials and then really about hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

The five trials that were presented are CardioTransform, evaluating plantaroscin and ATTR cardiomyopathy.

Single AF, asking whether we should anticoagulate patients with atrial fibrillation who have traditionally been considered at only intermediate risk for stroke.

POET2, challenging how long we actually need to treat select patients with infective endocarditis.

Acadia HCM, evaluating african and symptomatic non-obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

And CMR guide asking whether cardiac MRI can identify those with ejection fractions above 35% who nevertheless benefit from ICD.

We won't talk about that trial really in depth.

What I do want to do in this episode is go beyond simply telling you what each trial was positive or negative.

We're going to talk about what actually was studied, what the results were, what the limitations are, how I interpret these findings, and perhaps most importantly for the podcast, what does this mean for pharmacists and cardiovascular clinicians taking care of their patients? And there are some surprises here, so let's get started.