High standards maintained at Young Investigator Award

Irish Cardiac Society 72nd Annual Scientific Meeting and AGM, virtual, 7-9 October 2021

The ICS 72nd Annual Scientific Meeting and AGM hosted a wide range of poster presentations for assessment by a panel of adjudicators, as well as the prestigious Brian Maurer Young Investigator Award (YIA). The YIA was supported by Servier Laboratories Ireland Ltd. The YIA candidates were Dr Jatinda Kumar, who spoke on ‘Incidence and prevalence of MINOCA (myocardial infarction with non-obstructive coronary arteries) in STEMI patients: Experience from Irish tertiary care’.

The second presentation was delivered by Dr James Mannion, who addressed the meeting on the topic, ‘Arrythmogenic substrate stratification of posterior left atrial wall in atrial fibrillation versus sinus rhythm in persistent atrial fibrillation using automated voltage analysis’. Next to speak was Dr Munza Hussain, on the theme of ‘Atrial uptake on technetium pyrophosphate scintigraphy: Clinical implications of this new phenomenon’. The final entrant was Dr Jane Murphy, who addressed the topic ‘Predictive genetic testing in inherited cardiac conditions: Findings from a large Irish cohort’.

The judging panel acknowledged the high quality of the entries and it was announced at the end of the meeting that the winner was Dr Hussain. “This is the biggest study looking not only at cardiac amyloid, but it also included patients without cardiac amyloid,” said Dr Hussain during her presentation. “This study also emphasises the link between atrial uptake and atrial fibrillation, given the fact that if you have atrial uptake on your PYP scan, you are more likely to
develop atrial fibrillation within the first year, and this leads to so many clinical questions.”

In the poster presentations section of the meeting, the winner of the Prof David Foley Intervention Case Competition was announced as Dr Lisa Brandon for her presentation on ‘What do cardiology and orthopaedics have in common? How to deal with an emergency fracture’. Winner of the Best Oral Abstract presentation was Dr Daniel O’Hare, for ‘Clinical associations and pathological mechanisms of reduced atrial conduction velocity’.

Dr Habitha Sulaiman won the Best Moderated Poster prize for her poster titled ‘Influence of routine cardiac rhythm assessment in the long-term management of channelopathy patients’.

The Best General Poster winner was Dr Claire Tonry for ‘Identification of novel protein biomarkers for atrial fibrillation’. The Brian McGovern Scholarship Recipient 2021, which was supported by Daiichi Sankyo Ireland, was announced as Dr Heather Cronin. Dr Cronin recently commenced a fellowship in inherited cardiac conditions in St Bart’s Hospital in London under the supervision of Prof Perry Elliot.