Five trials to watch
The American Heart Association opens its annual Scientific Sessions on Friday at McCormick Place in Chicago. The meeting runs through Monday and includes 23 late-breaking science presentations across six sessions, from Saturday to Monday. The topics run from prevention and stroke to hypertension, arrhythmia, obesity and the use of artificial intelligence in care.
Five trials sit at the centre of the programme. Lp(a)HORIZON tests whether lowering lipoprotein(a), a genetic risk factor with no approved therapy, changes outcomes. ZEUS looks at inflammation as a treatment target in patients with established cardiovascular disease. PROGRESS studies moderate aortic stenosis, a condition often watched rather than treated. SYNCHRONIZE-CVOT examines cardiovascular outcomes in people with obesity. OPTIMAL-DIABETES compares blood-pressure targets in type 2 diabetes.
Why the results matter
Each of these trials addresses a gap rather than a small refinement. Lipoprotein(a) has been measured in clinics for years without a drug to act on it. Moderate aortic stenosis has no medical therapy, so patients wait for surgery. Blood-pressure targets in diabetes have swung between tighter and looser goals for a decade.
Results will be released under the association's embargo rules, which bar sponsors from publishing before the scheduled presentation time. That means most of the headlines will land between Saturday morning and Monday afternoon.
AI moves into the main hall
The meeting also gives space to AI in cardiology. One session covers a programme that delivers echocardiography with AI-assisted image acquisition and remote reading by cardiologists, an approach aimed at hospitals without a full imaging team. Other sessions look at how algorithms should be validated before they reach wards.
Friday's programme includes the Paul Dudley White International Lecture, given by Patrick Serruys of the University of Galway, titled Coronary Revascularization in 2040. He speaks from 1:15 to 2:45 p.m. Central time.
For clinicians, the value of the week is less in any single result than in how the trials fit together. Prevention, obesity, lipids and blood pressure are converging on the same patients, and the meeting will show whether the evidence is converging too.