Clinical articles

Women represented 29% of cardiology trainees and 16% of consultants in the UK in 2021. While the numbers of women in cardiology have increased over the last 20 years, these proportions remain among the lowest in comparison with other medical specialties. This essay aims to explore the contributing factors behind, and plans to reduce, gender disparity in cardiology.

PubMed was searched using keywords such as ‘gender’, ‘inequality’, ‘women’, ‘training’ and ‘cardiology’. Retrieved studies were screened for themes contributing towards, and strategies to overcome, gender inequality within cardiology.

Reasons for gender inequality included poor perceptions of cardiology as a female-friendly specialty, experiences of gender-based discrimination, inflexible working hours, poor work–life balance, and lack of female role models. Recommended resolutions should target these themes; increase opportunities for flexible working hours, enforce a discrimination-free workplace culture, and encourage mentoring relationships between female senior and junior doctors. Improving the experience of the existing female workforce in cardiology will have a knock-on effect on the perceptions of trainees rotating through departments, in addition to initiatives promoting cardiology as a female-friendly specialty.

In conclusion, promoting gender equality within cardiology remains an ongoing challenge. Nationwide efforts to increase retention and improve perceptions should target issues highlighted by the voices of women.

While statins are the gold standard for lipid-lowering therapies, newer therapies, such as PCSK9 inhibitors, have also demonstrated low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) reduction, but with a similar or better safety profile. Conflicting guidance has contributed to a low uptake. More up-to-date, evidence-led guidance supports greater use of newer therapies, particularly in combination with statins, to reduce LDL-C to levels shown to be effective in trials. The aim of this study was to determine how such guidance can be implemented more effectively in the UK.

Using a modified Delphi approach, a panel of healthcare professionals with an interest in the management of dyslipidaemia developed 27 statements across four key themes. These were used to form an online survey that was distributed to healthcare professionals working in cardiovascular care across the UK. Stopping criteria included 100 responses received, a seven-month window for response (September 2021 to March 2022), and 90% of statements passing the predefined consensus threshold of 75%.

A total of 109 responses were analysed with 23 statements achieving consensus (four statements <75%). Variance was observed across respondent role, and by UK region. From the high degree of consensus, seven recommendations were established as to how evidence-based guidance can be delivered, including a call for personalised therapy strategies and simplification of LDL-C goals, which should be achieved within as short a time as possible.

We present the angiographic findings of a case of myocardial infarction associated with COVID-19 with a heavy burden of thrombus, despite only minor obstructive coronary disease.

There has been suggestion that vitamin D may play a role in protection against severe infection with COVID-19. In this article a potential mechanism involving angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is proposed.

Acute type A aortic dissection is a devastating aortic disease associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Clinicians should maintain a high degree of suspicion in patients presenting with sudden-onset chest pain, although the diagnosis may be confounded by the broad spectrum of attendant symptoms and signs. Accurate and timely identification of the acute dissection is of paramount importance to ensure suitable patients are referred promptly for definitive surgical management. This review focuses on the diagnosis of acute type A aortic dissection and discusses the haematological tests, and electrocardiographic, echocardiographic and radiological investigations necessary to confirm the diagnosis and assess for associated complications. The acute medical management of patients with acute type A dissection is also reviewed.

Aortic dissection is a life-threatening condition that is often under-recognised. In the first in a series of articles about the condition, the epidemiology, pathology, classification and clinical presentation of aortic dissection are discussed.

Around 100 years ago, the first link between infective endocarditis (IE) and dental procedures was hypothesised; shortly after, physicians began to use antibiotics in an effort to reduce the risk of developing IE. Whether invasive dental procedures are linked to the development of IE, and antibiotic prophylaxis (AP) is effective, have since remained topics of controversy. This controversy, in large part, has been due to the lack of prospective randomised clinical trial data. From this suboptimal position, guideline committees representing different societies and countries have struggled to reach an optimal position on whether AP use is needed for invasive dental procedures (or other procedures) and in whom. We present the findings from an investigation involving a large US patient database, published earlier this year, by Thornhill and colleagues. The work featured the use of both a cohort and case-crossover design and demonstrated there was a significant temporal association between invasive dental procedures and development of IE in high-IE-risk patients. Furthermore, the study showed that AP use was associated with a reduced risk of IE. Additional data, also published this year, from a separate study using nationwide hospital admissions data from England by Thornhill’s group, showed that certain dental and non-dental procedures were significantly associated with the subsequent development of IE. Two other investigations have reported similar concerns for non-dental invasive procedures and risk of IE. Collectively, the results of this work support a re-evaluation of the current position taken by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and other organisations that are responsible for publishing practice guidelines.

Sarcoidosis is a multi-factorial inflammatory disease characterised by the formation of non-caseating granulomas in the affected organs. Cardiac involvement can be the first, and occasionally the only, manifestation of sarcoidosis. The prevalence of cardiac sarcoidosis (CS) is higher than previously suspected. CS is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. Thus, early diagnosis is critical to introducing immunosuppressive therapy that could prevent an adverse outcome. Endomyocardial biopsy (EMB) has limited utility in the diagnostic pathway of patients with suspected CS. As a result, advanced imaging modalities, i.e. cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography with ¹⁸F-Fluorodeoxyglucose/computed tomography scan (¹⁸F-FDG-PET/CT), have emerged as alternative tools for diagnosing CS and might be considered the new ‘gold standard’. This focused review will discuss the epidemiology and pathology of CS, when to suspect and evaluate CS, highlight the complementary roles of cardiac MRI and ¹⁸F-FDG-PET/CT, and their diagnostic and prognostic values in CS, in the current content of guidelines for the diagnostic workflow of CS.

Untreated heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) has a one-year mortality rate of 40%. The DAPA-HF trial found that dapagliflozin reduces mortality and heart failure (HF) hospitalisation by 17% and 30%, respectively. We describe the initiation and real-world tolerability of dapagliflozin for the management of HFrEF at a large university teaching hospital in central London.

We reviewed 118 HFrEF patients initiated on dapagliflozin from January to August 2021 in both inpatient and outpatient settings using the Trust’s electronic records. A total of 69 (58.4%) patients were on optimised HF pharmacological therapy upon initiation of dapagliflozin. Dapagliflozin was discontinued in 12 (13.0%) patients. Twenty-three (42.6%) patients either discontinued or had a dose reduction in loop diuretics post-initiation of dapagliflozin.

In clinical practice, early initiation of dapagliflozin is safe, well-tolerated and resulted in earlier discontinuation or dose reduction in loop diuretics, providing opportunities to further optimise other HF medicines. This retrospective observational study supports the safety of the updated European Society of Cardiology (ESC) guidelines to initiate all four key HF medicines to minimise delays in HF treatment optimisation, which could translate to reduced National Health Service healthcare costs through fewer HF hospitalisations.

A 33-year-old woman, with palpitations since the age of 15, was referred to a cardiology consultation due to very frequent ventricular extrasystoles with morphology of left bundle branch block, inferior frontal axis, late precordial transition, rS in V1, R in V6 and rS in DI. She had pectus excavatum. The cardiac magnetic resonance showed severe pectus excavatum associated with exaggerated cardiac levoposition, compression and deformation of the right cardiac chambers. However, the patient became pregnant, and follow-up was delayed.