Alexander Benz

Hot off the press: Surgical LAAO reduces the risk for cardioembolic stroke and attenuates stroke disability and mortality #phri @McmasterStroke @mike_sharma2 @lucianacatanese @Ash_Shoamanesh

The sun is rising in New Orleans, on the first day of AHA 2025! Tomorrow we show data from the DRAI MARTINI study that answers whether the superior sensitivity of DeepRhythmAI for arrhythmia detection leads to relevant diagnoses or just a mess of incidental findings? Very proud on behalf of the whole study team that this abstract also won the Paul Dudley White Award for Norway. Clinical Science Zone 2, 9.55 in the session "Harnessing AI: Innovations in Arrhythmia Detection and Management". Hope to see you there! @SZDiederichsen @WFMMD @EmmaSvennberg @AlexanderPBenz #Medicalgorithmics #AHA2025

@DFCapodanno @drjohnm 912 of planned 1,512 participants enrolled. "Following 2nd blinded interim analysis: no longer event-driven".

@drjohnm clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT03463…

Here are the Late Breakers from #AHA25. My initial favorites are – coming at you with some New Orleans groove: OPTIMA-AF – Short dual antithrombotic therapy after PCI in patients with atrial fibrillation CLOSURE-AF – Left atrial appendage closure versus medical therapy in AF patients at high risk of stroke and bleeding CELEBRATE – Prehospital treatment with Zalunfiban in STEMI patients undergoing primary PCI TUXEDO-2 – Ticagrelor versus prasugrel in diabetic patients with multivessel coronary artery disease undergoing PCI. DAPT-MVD – Extended dual antiplatelet therapy in stable patients with multivessel coronary artery disease treated with drug-eluting stents. #late-breaking" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">professional.heart.org/en/meetings/sc…

⚠️ New meta-analysis in @JAMANeuro shows high residual risk of stroke in AF patients—even with anticoagulation. 🧠 3.75%/yr risk of recurrence, 7.2% if stroke occurred despite OAC. HIGH 📉 1 in 6 have recurrent stroke at 5 yrs. Urgent need for better prevention tools. #ESOC2025

#STROKE: This topical review by @DavidSeiffge et al. discusses the available approaches to achieve left atrial appendage occlusion and the available evidence for LAAO in patients with AFib.🫀 #AHAJournals @AlexanderPBenz @docsaw @inselgruppe ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.11…

Thrilled to share that the OCEANIC-STROKE trial (NCT05686070), led by @PHRIresearch & @BayerPharma, has successfully completed enrolment of over 12,300 participants with non-cardioembolic ischemic #stroke over a recruitment period of only 26-months! 🔗phri.ca/oceanicstroke/

LAAO and stroke: We summarize current evidence & ongoing trials: promising option for AF patients to avoid OAC (i.e. after ICH, CAA) or if DOAC alone is not enough (i.e. after #breakthroughstroke) @AlexanderPBenz ⁦@ELAPSETrial⁩ ⁦@StrokeAHA_ASA⁩ ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/ST…

This is a group of people doing great things and having a good time! Could be the smartest table in all Vienna #EHRA2025 @AlexanderPBenz @EmmaSvennberg @DrJasonAndrade @WFMMD @PlatonovPyotr @StavrosStavrak1 @SZDiederichsen @tayavg @EPjeff17

@drjohnm @AndrewFoy82 @MRuzieh We looked at the association between arrhythmia recurrence and healthcare utilization during the 8-week „blanking period“ #EHRA2025 @WFMMD @Dominik_Linz @drjohnm @DrJasonAndrade

Patients lives don’t stop for a blanking period. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11… @AndrewFoy82 @MRuzieh It’s time to jettison the blanking period altogether #ACC25 #ehra25

Blanking Period After Catheter Ablation of Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation: Insights From Continuous Cardiac Monitoring @KhairyPaul @MarcDeyell @drjasonandrade @JuliaCTourigny @RBennett_EP #AHAJournals #EPeeps doi.org/10.1161/CIRCEP…

Getting your real-time heart rhythm monitored for 10 days now requires an ECG technician to review and notify your doctor of a critical arrhythmia. A new study showed A.I. did better than technicians (98.6% vs 80.3%) for identifying these abnormalities nature.com/articles/s4159… @NatureMedicine

Everyone with an interest in AI, ECGs, or cardiology should read our paper out in Nature Medicine today! The DRAI MARTINI study tested the performance of DeepRhythmAI from #MEDICALgorithmics for direct-to-physician reporting of ambulatory ECGs. The results overwhelmingly favour the AI, with 14 times fewer missed diagnoses of critical arrhytmias. Read it here: nature.com/articles/s4159… Here's the study in brief: 🏥 >200,000 days of ECGs from >14,000 patients 🩺 >50 experts provided 3-cardiologist beat-to-beat consensus panel annotations of >5,000 ECG events 🖥️ Innovative study design provides absolute rates of missed diagnoses of AF or SVT ≥30s, 3rd degree block, 3.5s asystole or >10s VT Results: 🫀Missed diagnoses in 3.2/1000 patients by DeepRhythm and 44.3/1000 patients by techs 🫀Superior sensitivity (98.6% vs 80.3%) 🫀NPV >99.9% for DeepRhythmAI. This study is the result of an awesome collaboration with true leaders in the field who not only gave their scientific expertise but also committed many hours of their own time doing beat-to-beat annotations of >5,300 ECG events, with consensus annotation on every single beat. This resulted in an impressive author list including @EmmaSvennberg @SZDiederichsen @DrJasonAndrade @WFMMD @AlexanderPBenz @EPjeff17 @PlatonovPyotr @StavrosStavrak1 @Cardiaficionado @Dominik_Linz @JuanBenezet @PhilippKrisai @SanjeevBhavnani @AlirezaOraii @ManningerMartin and many more!

Should patients with #stroke and device-detected subclinical #AFib (SCAF) receive OAC? Our subgroup analyses of the @Artesia_RCT published in @TheLancetNeuro provide novel insights indicating that they indeed should in the right setting. thelancet.com/journals/laneu… #CardioTwitter

Thrilled to announce that #EnrichAF completed enrolment of 948 patients in Q4 2024. So grateful for the efforts of our global colleagues on reaching this milestone, despite the several challenges we've faced along the way. Follow-up is due to complete in Q1 2026. Stay tuned!

Strong representation from the @MacDeptMed @HamHealthSci @PHRIresearch #stroke research program at this year's #WSC2024! phri.ca/wsc2024/ @McmasterStroke @WorldStrokeEd @ArKatsanos @mike_sharma2 @AlexanderPBenz @WorldStrokeOrg #neurotwitter #MedEd

@McmasterStroke Thanks very much for your support @McmasterStroke ! Cannot take credit for largest ICH RCT however. Only largest looking at this question But apparently size doesn’t matter ;)

@TotoMynell @DavidSeiffge @PHRIresearch @WorldStrokeOrg @ESOstroke @StrokeBern 100%. In 2025?

@AlexanderPBenz @DavidSeiffge @PHRIresearch @WorldStrokeOrg @ESOstroke Obviously, I was just trolling :-) anytime - can we invite you to @StrokeBern?

Back to the future? Are VKA a potential solution to lower the risk of recurrence in patients with #breakthroughstrokes despite OAC in patients with AF? ⁦@AlexanderPBenz⁩ of ⁦⁩ ⁦@PHRIresearch⁩ at ⁦@WorldStrokeOrg⁩ ⁦@ESOstroke⁩ thought provocing

@TotoMynell @DavidSeiffge @PHRIresearch @WorldStrokeOrg @ESOstroke That’s a short answer! Looking forward to giving you some details, and the chance to reconsider. When? Where?

@DavidSeiffge @AlexanderPBenz @PHRIresearch @WorldStrokeOrg @ESOstroke No

An incredible journey coming to an end...or is it just the beginning? Congratulations to all WSO Future stroke leaders from Cohort 2! @WorldStrokeOrg #WSC2024 @PHRIresearch @McmasterStroke @MacDeptMed