Highlights of the week:

Islam “Izzy” Othman, MD to Join Duke Heart

We are excited to announce that Izzy Othman will be joining the Duke Heart Team to lead the care of patients with complex coronary artery disease and chronic total coronary occlusions.  Dr. Othman founded the complex coronary intervention and chronic total occlusion program at WakeMed in 2013.  Over the past 6 years, he has guided the program to regional and national recognition for exceptional safety standards and efficacy in complex coronary interventions.  A recipient of The Triangle Business Journal “40 under 40” award, Dr. Othman is a recognized leader in the field of complex coronary interventions directing cardiovascular symposia and serving as a national preceptor for complex coronary interventions including chronic total occlusions.  He has also served as medical director of interventional cardiology and director of cardiac cath labs in the WakeMed Health and Hospital system.  Dr. Othman will join the multi-disciplinary team at Duke that includes cardio-thoracic surgeons, interventional cardiologists, heart failure specialists, and general cardiologists that aim to improve decision-making regarding revascularization of patients with complex coronary artery disease.  Given his unique perspective as a healthcare leader within Wake County, he will also continue to help bridge the care for heart disease patients as part of the HeartCare Plus initiative by spending time seeing patients and performing procedures in Durham and Wake counties.

Dr. Othman is a native of Durham and completed his general cardiology and interventional cardiology fellowship at the Heart Institute at East Carolina University.  Please welcome Izzy when you see him.

AUGUSTUS Trial Results Accepted as ACC Late Breaker

Congratulations to Renato Lopes (trial PI), John Alexander (trial executive committee chair), Chris Granger (executive committee member) and the rest of the AUGUSTUS trial team! Their clinical trial findings have been accepted as a late-breaker for presentation at ACC.19; they’ll present their results on Sunday, March 17 in New Orleans.

Their submission, “An Open-label, 2 x 2 Factorial, Randomized Trial to Evaluate the Safety of Apixaban versus Vitamin K Antagonist and Aspirin versus Placebo in Patients with Atrial Fibrillation and Acute Coronary Syndrome and/or Percutaneous Coronary Intervention: Primary Results of the AUGUSTUS Trial,” was accepted into LBCT session 405: Joint American College of Cardiology/Journal of the American Medical Association Late-Breaking Clinical Trials.

This photo was taken during a dinner with AUGUSTUS trial team members from the Duke Clinical Research Institute and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Dukies shown here include Jerry Kirchner, John Alexander, Chris Granger, Liz Cook, Renato Lopes, Amit Vora and Gretchen Heizer. The others are from Bristol-Meyers Squibb, who, along with Pfizer, sponsored the trial. The team gathered on January 10 at Angus Barn to celebrate the unblinding of the AUGUSTUS results.

AUGUSTUS, which launched in 2011, enrolled 4614 patients with atrial fibrillation and either an acute coronary syndrome or PCI. Patients were randomized in a 2 x 2 factorial design to apixaban or warfarin and aspirin or aspirin placebo. The primary outcome was bleeding. Death or hospitalization and ischemic events were secondary outcomes.

Well done!

Califf, Ginsburg at Keystone

Digital Health: From Science to Application was held January 21-25 in Keystone, CO. Geoff Ginsburg was one of the organizers for the conference which was convened by Keystone Symposia on Molecular and Cellular Biology. The event pulled together dozens of thought-leaders with strong interest in digital technologies and how they’re applied to human health. Presenters included Robert Califf, “Can we map the human health condition?” and several others with ties to Duke including Helen Eggers of NYU and Jason Langheier of Zipongo.

To learn more, please see https://bit.ly/2sPUcOw or, if you’re on Twitter, you can check out their conference feed at #KSdighealth.

Duke at STS in San Diego

Jill Engel and Brittany Zwischenberger each presented at the 55th annual meeting of The Society of Thoracic Surgeons this weekend in San Diego. Engel was a moderator for the Multidisciplinary Session and is on that work group for the STS. She also spoke about Advanced Practice Coverage Models. Zwischenberger presented on a Culture of Safety and shared the work Duke Heart is doing as part of Duke Heart Safe Choices. Shown with them in this photo is Peter Smith, chief, Duke Division of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery.

Nice job!