27 Jun 18. BHF study on AAS

BHF to fund clinical fellowship

BHF Professor of Cardiology David Newby has received £260,591 from The British Heart Foundation (BHF) to fund a three-year clinical research training fellowship, which will be taken up by Dr Maaz Syed.

Dr Syed will use a highly specialised scanning technique called positron emission tomography (PET) to monitor the progression of acute aortic syndrome (AAS) in patients with a damaged aorta.

The images will allow researchers to check whether the aorta is expanding. This research can help predict which patients will need to have surgery to repair their aorta before they develop life-threatening complications.

Improve our understanding on this devastating condition

If the aorta ruptures, the consequences for the patient are catastrophic. However, AAS is unpredictable. At the moment, we can’t accurately anticipate how patients will progress or whether their aorta will rupture

Professor David Newby

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Professor Newby continues, “By using PET scanning, we hope to predict which patients might come to harm by highlighting damaged areas of the aorta. We can then follow these individuals to see if their aorta expands, and monitor their progress to improve outcomes. The research will improve our understanding of this often devastating and deadly condition.”

Thanks to research and medical advances funded by the BHF, more people than ever before are surviving heart and circulatory disease. That’s why we need to keep funding research into conditions like AAS, which can cause serious illness or death without warning.

James Cant

Thanks to pioneering research funded by the BHF in Scotland’s capital, we can really make a difference to people living with this condition.