Report of the British Society for Cardiovascular Research Inaugural Online Autumn Meeting 2020

Abstract

Report of the British Society for Cardiovascular Research Inaugural Online Autumn Meeting 2020 Helen M. Arthur Biosciences Institute, Centre for Life, Newcastle University, Newcastle NE1 3BZ, UK The British Society for Cardiovascular Research (BSCR; https://bscr.org) postponed its regular autumn meeting until September 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This also meant that the annual Bernard and Joan Marshall Early Career Investigator Award, which forms an important part of the autumn meeting, also had to be postponed. However, in order to provide an online BSCRmeeting forum this autumn, the BSCR organised a highly topical online mini-symposium on 8th September 2020 entitled “Coronavirus and the cardiovascular system”. This online meeting was free to attend and was open to BSCR members and non-members. Altogether, there were 174 attendees, including some from outside the UK. The feedback was very positive, and a recording is available for part of the meeting on the BSCR webpage (https://bscr.org/event/bscrautumn-2020-ol/). The audience was warmly welcomed by the BSCR committee chair, Dr Karen Porter, from the University of Leeds, and then, three excellent speakers presented on complementary aspects of COVID-19 and the cardiovascular system. Dr Mairi Brittan (University of Edinburgh) introduced the first speaker Dr Anda Bularga, a clinical research PhD student supervised by Professors Nicholas Mills and David Newby in the BHF Centre for Cardiovascular Science at the University of Edinburgh. In her talk entitled “COVID-HEART: Direct and indirect effects of COVID-19 on acute cardiac care”, Dr Bularga outlined how COVID-19 disease begins in the respiratory system, with breathlessness as the most common presenting symptom. Chronic heart disease and diabetes are common co-morbidities in hospitalised COVID-19 patients, and research so far has shown that these patients are at higher risk of adverse clinical outcomes. A considerable research effort is underway to improve our understanding of this condition. Biomarkers for myocardial injury provide a useful way of tracking injury and risk. These include troponin (Tn) I released from injured cardiomyocytes and BNP released in response to myocardial stretch. COVID-19 patients with increased TnI blood levels have a significantly increased risk of mortality. The underlying mechanism of myocardial injury in the majority of these patients remains uncertain. Early clinical experience and case reports identified a number of well-recognised clinical conditions in patients with COVID-19 including acute viral myocarditis, stress or Takotsubo cardiomyopathy and thromboembolic disease. In recently published work [1], Dr Bulgara and the team at the University of Edinburgh collaborated with the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging to examine echocardiographic data to evaluate cardiac abnormalities in 1216 COVID-19 patients from 69 countries. Of these patients, 55% had an abnormal echocardiogram with a range of cardiac phenotypes affecting left, right or both ventricles. Elevated blood troponin and BNP were independent predictors of abnormal left ventricular function, whilst increased severe respiratory symptoms were associated with an abnormal right ventricle. The pathobiology of myocardial injury post-COVID-19 infection appears to be diverse and complex and is an ongoing area of active investigation. Dr Bularga also discussed recent reports of a worldwide reduction in patients attending hospital with heart attacks. In England, there was almost a 50% decrease in heart attack patients during the peak of the pandemic when compared with a calendar-matched period in previous years. A patient-centred telephone interview study suggested that anxiety around the risk of COVID-19 infection was an important factor. Any patient with untreated myocardial infarction will inevitably incur increased myocardial damage that is likely to lead to an increased risk of cardiac problems such as heart failure in the next months and years. Dr Sanjay Sinha (University of Cambridge) introduced our next speaker https://doi.org/10.1007/s10557-021-07161-7 Cardiovascular Drugs and Therapy (2021) 35:407–409