This event is archived.

About

The Canadian Heart Failure Society invites you to join three world-renowned experts for an in-depth look at the management of hyperkalemia in patients with heart failure. Hyperkalemia is increasingly prevalent in the heart failure population as more people live with heart failure and comorbid conditions such as diabetes and chronic kidney disease. Discontinuing renin–angiotensin–aldosterone (RAAS) inhibitors to manage hyperkalemia can result in poor outcomes, as RAASi are a key component of clinical therapy for HF. The experts will be providing education on how hyperkalemia should be defined, as well as data and best practices on treating hyperkalemia without discontinuing RAASi.

Learning Objectives

1. Recognize hyperkalemia as a barrier to optimal renin angiotensin aldosterone system inhibitor (RAASi) therapy and impact on patient outcomes
2. Define the clinical care gaps in the treatment of chronic hyperkalemia
3. Understand the utility of novel potassium binders in optimizing the use of RAASi therapy

Speakers

Chair

  • Jonathan Howlett MD, FRCPC, FCCS, FACC, FHFSA (hon)

    Dr. Jonathan Howlett is an Advanced Heart Failure Cardiologist. Dr. Howlett graduated from the University of Toronto Medical School in 1989, completed Internal Medicine and Cardiology studies at Dalhousie University in 1994, and continued his training at the Toronto Congenital Cardiac Centre for Adults. He served as Assistant Professor of Medicine at Dalhousie University in Halifax from 1995 to 2008, and then became Clinical Professor of Medicine at the Libin Cardiovascular Institute and Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary, where he remains at present.

    His current activities include clinical trials research in the areas of heart failure, health care delivery, outcomes and knowledge translation. He is past Chair of the Canadian Cardiovascular Society Heart Failure Guidelines and has served on several national and international Guidelines Committees, Scientific Planning and Steering Committees. He is currently Co-Chair of the Heart Failure Working Group Alberta Strategic CV Clinical Network, Past and Founding President of the Canadian Heart Failure Society and co-chair of the CHFS Annual HF Update Meeting. He publishes actively in the areas of chronic cardiovascular disease management, heart failure and end of life, and has published over 130 peer-reviewed articles and is an Associate Editor of the Merck Manual.

Speakers

  • Ileana Piña MD, MPH, FAHA, FACC, FHFSA

    Ileana Piña, M.D., a Board-certified heart failure transplant cardiologist, is a clinical professor of medicine at Central Michigan University and adjunct professor at Case Western Reserve University. She also serves as a Medical Officer in the Food and Drug Administrations’ (FDA) Center for Devices and Radiological Health. 

    As a heart failure specialist, the COVID-19 pandemic brought on many concerns to Piña, including how to continue working on clinical trials in the new environment. “As soon as this pandemic began, we’ve been worried about our heart failure patients, because COVID-19 and heart failure have some quite similar symptoms,” Piña said. She used all means at her disposal, including videos and blog posts, to alert patients to the risk factors for heart failure and urge them to continue to follow their treatment plans and take their meds on time.

    She has also raised the alarm about the racial and ethnic disparities the pandemic made so obvious. “We have been noticing for a long time that African Americans, for instance, have greater risk factors and greater challenges in access to care and prevalence of certain conditions such as hypertension,” she said. Piña expects that when the pandemic is over the medical community and society as a whole will finally address this disparity. 

    Piña is an attending physician who also oversees clinical trials. Some of her studies have upturned preconceived notions about women in the medical community and she strives to get more women into clinical trials. Her research interests include transition of care in heart failure patients, and the role of natriuretic peptide-guided management for patients hospitalized for heart failure, biomarkers of myocardial stress and fibrosis in chronic heart failure, and the clinical implications of chronic heart failure phenotypes. In 2017, Piña received the Wenger Award for Excellence in Research, which honors those who make extraordinary contributions to the advancement of women’s heart health in underserved communities. In 2020, she received the Laennec Master Clinician Award from the American Heart Association. She is the author/co-author of more than 250 publications.

  • Patrick Rossignol MD, PhD

    Patrick Rossignol, MD, PhD, is a Nephrologist and Vascular medicine specialist, European Society of Hypertension certified hypertension specialist, Professor of Therapeutics at the University of Lorraine, France.

    ·        Since 2007, he was holding the position of deputy Director of the Nancy University Hospital Inserm Clinical Investigation Centre, which was headed by Professor Faiez Zannad. Patrick Rossignol is heading the Centre since January 2018.

    ·        Since 2014, he is coordinating a French multidisciplinary (basic researchers, cardiologists, nephrologists, intensivists, epidemiologists, geriatricians, GPs) network of excellence endorsed by the “Investissement d’Avenir” F-CRIN (French Clinical research Infrastructure Network, the French affiliate of ECRIN/ERIC: Cardiovascular and Renal Clinical Trialists (INI-CRCT) www.inicrct.org. As such, he is coordinating the INSERM cardiovascular clinical Investigation centres, a component of INI-CRCT, and is serving in F-CRIN steering committee. Since 2019, he is serving in F-CRIN executive board.

    ·        He is a Researcher in Inserm U1116, he runs outpatient clinics at the Nancy University Hospital Heart Failure and Hypertension Unit (ESH excellence Centre) as well as in a hemodialysis clinic within a Disease Management programme (ALTIR).

Sponsor

  • Otsuka Canada Pharmaceutical Inc.