William M. Chilian, PhD, FAHA, FCVS
Professor, Integrative Medical Sciences
Northeast Ohio Medical University
“Why do hearts fail? (How Louis Pasteur Influenced my Hypothesis.)”
Heart failure is a term used to describe the heart’s inability to supply organ systems throughout the body with adequate blood flow. This can be due to poor contractile function, or due to impaired filling of the left ventricle with blood. Although heart failure can be treated by a variety of drugs, the therapies only slow the progression of the disease. This prompts the rhetorical question, are the therapies targeting the pathophysiological mechanism(s) causing the disease? The purpose of this seminar is to address a new hypothesis for the mechanism of heart failure—a mechanism that is a common link among heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, heart failure with reduced ejection fraction and Takotsubo syndrome. The underlying condition connecting these three pathologies is coronary microvascular dysfunction that can produce subclinical myocardial ischemia. Subclinical myocardial ischemia is a term to describe minute, microscopic areas of injury, which progressively accumulate over time until failure occurs. The seminar will discuss the preclinical data supporting this hypothesis, clinical studies of patients with coronary microvascular disease that support the concept, and a potential therapy that may stop, and even reverse, the progression of heart failure.
Friday November 08, 2024, 11:00AM-12:00PM, LIB-110
University of North Texas Health Science Center
Fort Worth, Texas