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Just over two years ago, Ian Hutchinson (Hutch) was cycling with a friend on Sydney’s northern beaches, taking part in an activity he regularly enjoyed with his mate. But that morning was to have a life-changing impact, with Hutch suffering a sudden cardiac arrest midway through the ride.

It was only the quick thinking of his friend Don MacKee and a group of bystanders who called triple 0 and immediately began CPR, that saved Hutch’s life.

He was treated at Royal North Shore Hospital by interventional cardiologist and Kolling researcher Professor Gemma Figtree, and despite being clinically dead for a remarkable 19 minutes, Hutch survived, recovered and is today fit and healthy.

“I am very lucky to be here and enjoying my life. 91 per cent of people who have an out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrest don’t make it, so I realise how fortunate I am.

“I had never experienced any problems with my heart, I exercised most days and looked after my health, so the cardiac arrest was completely out of the blue. We still don’t know the cause.

“I now have an internal cardiac defibrillator in my chest in case there are any further problems or irregularities. For me it’s an insurance policy, giving me confidence to embark on exercise and most of the activities I used to enjoy.

“I am now an advocate for CPR and founded CPRfriendly.org to raise awareness and public access to defibrillators. This is my way of trying to pay it forward and help others.”

Hutch says he is indebted to the team at Royal North Shore Hospital and Professor Gemma Figtree, a leading cardiologist, internationally respected researcher and president of the Australian Cardiovascular Alliance.

“Gemma and the team have been excellent all the way through. There’s nothing I could fault.

“I not only benefited from her expertise and experience during those critical moments straight after my sudden cardiac arrest, but two years later Gemma is monitoring my condition and adjusting my medication where necessary.

“It gives you peace of mind and confidence when you have someone like her as your specialist, knowing you are receiving the best care, backed by science and clinical expertise.” 

Two leading cardiovascular experts have been appointed to a prestigious world expert panel to reduce rates of cardiovascular disease in women.

Royal North Shore Hospital (RNSH) interventional cardiologist and Kolling Institute researcher, Professor Gemma Figtree, and RNSH senior hospital scientist and Kolling Institute researcher, Dr Anastasia Mihailidou, have been appointed commissioners of The Lancet women and cardiovascular disease Commission.

The pair joins the all-female panel of 17 experts who are calling for urgent action on cardiovascular disease (CVD) in women in a report recently released.

Both Gemma and Anastasia were invited to join the commission, along with 15 other leading female CVD experts to provide recommendations on how to reduce the burden of the disease – which is the leading cause of death among women.

“The Commission Report released in The Lancet is the result of three years of work to collect and collate the different sources of data and research, as well as numerous regional parallel efforts underway to provide recommendations to reduce the global burden of cardiovascular disease in women by 2030,” Anastasia said.

“It provides the starting point for a global strategy for call to action to mobilise and energise the many key stakeholders, health-care professionals, policy makers, and women themselves for a healthier future.

“The Commission will continue to observe trends, evaluate the effect of current recommendations, and suggest actionable key initiatives to combat cardiovascular disease in women during the next decade.”

The Commission aims to help reduce the global burden of cardiovascular conditions – including heart disease and stroke by 2030. Cardiovascular disease is responsible for 35 per cent of deaths in women each year.

High blood pressure is the greatest risk factor contributing to years of lost life from CVD in women, followed by high body mass index and high low density lipoproteins (LDL) cholesterol.

Gemma said while these well-established risk factors might affect women differently than men, there are sex-specific risk factors such as premature menopause and pregnancy related-disorders that must be more widely recognised and prioritised as part of treatment and prevention efforts worldwide.

“This report lays out the gaps and challenges, and identifies strategies required to begin to improve the health of women’s hearts around the world,” she said.

“The commissioners are committed to work with researchers from across the translational pipeline to unravel novel mechanisms, best prevention and treatment strategies, and to improve equitable access.”

A team of researchers from the Kolling Institute, The University of Sydney, Monash University and La Trobe University have led a global call to action to accelerate new approaches for cardiovascular disease (CVD) drug solutions.

CVD is the leading cause of death globally. Since the start of the pandemic approximately 18 million people have died of CVD, with the majority from low- and middle-income countries.

The epidemic of CVD is a global phenomenon, however equitable access to effective therapies continues to be an international challenge. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated what can be achieved when the world is faced with an acute health problem in urgent need of solutions. In the special feature article, co-published in leading journals European Heart Journal and Circulation, the authors argue that we must approach the fight against CVD, the world’s greatest killer, with the same level of gumption.

Kolling Institute researcher Professor Gemma Figtree, Professor Rebecca Ritchie from the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences and La Trobe University’s Professor Grant Drummond who leads the La Trobe Centre for Cardiovascular Biology and Disease Research, have led the call to action through their shared affiliation with the Australian Cardiovascular Alliance (ACvA) – Australia’s peak leadership body for the advancement of heart, stroke and vascular disease research.

The University of Sydney’s Professor Figtree, who is also President of the ACvA, said: “As we continue to wrestle with the immense challenge of implementing equitable access to established evidence-based treatments for CVD, substantial gaps remain – particularly in low- and middle-income countries.”

“Much like we’ve seen with COVID-19, we’re calling for the global mobilisation of researchers, clinicians, industry leaders and policy makers to accelerate discovery, translation and impact in CVD medicine.”

Professor Rebecca Ritchie, Drug Discovery Biology Theme Leader at MIPS said: “Developing a global approach to transform drug discovery for cardiovascular disease, whilst maintaining efforts towards equitable access to established effective treatments, is an imperative not an option.”

“Since the start of the pandemic, the extent of collaboration between researchers, industry, government and the community has been unprecedented – let’s continue the momentum applied to address COVID-19 and commit to taking similar steps in the fight against CVD, the world’s biggest killer.”

The authors have outlined the most urgent challenges and potential solutions for accelerating drug discovery and translation in the cardiovascular space, along with the next steps required to drive global collaboration to tackle CVD drug solutions.

The international roundtable identified a number of priority areas across how patients are classified beyond the traditional risk factors such as high blood pressure and cholesterol, smoking, lack of physical activity, obesity and comorbidities such as diabetes, for cardiovascular disease. Using this as a platform to discover new biological mechanisms that cause diseases such as heart attack and heart failure and hinder recovery and quality of life, the authors recommend then targeting these mechanisms to develop precision (personalised) medicine for affected patients.

“The plan is to establish collaborative preclinical and clinical trial networks to enable faster development of new treatments for cardiovascular disease. Together, the international team is now working on progressing these priority areas, engaging with industry, regulatory bodies, governments and the community on a global scale,” said Professor Ritchie. 

Two of our leading researchers will drive key Australian projects following a funding announcement from the National Health and Medical Research Council. (NHMRC)

More than $1.4 million from the partnership grant program will go to Kolling researcher and RNSH interventional cardiologist Professor Gemma Figtree and her team for a study to reduce coronary artery disease. The world-first project will receive an additional $2 million from industry and health partners.

Professor Figtree and her team will assess a new way to identify the risk of coronary artery disease – the most common form of heart disease which can lead to heart attacks.

Professor Figtree said our current assessment is based on the well-documented risk factors of smoking, hypertension, diabetes and high blood cholesterol.

However, between 15 and 30 per cent of people who experience a heart attack don’t have these traditional risk factors, so a new early detection test, called a polygenic risk score has been developed.

“As part of our research, we will be providing some robust data to measure the effectiveness of this new test using genetic markers to predict heart health,” she said.

“If it proves effective, we anticipate the new early warning test will directly inform clinical guidelines and government policy.

“It will help us identify those at risk of coronary artery disease so they can receive preventative treatment, similar to that received by those with the traditional risk factors.

“We anticipate this approach will reduce heart attacks and prevent deaths.”

An NHMRC partnership grant of $1.5 million will also go towards a study to improve the safety and quality of emergency nursing care. More than $3.6 million will be granted in total.

The NSLHD’s Nursing and Midwifery Director of Research Professor Margaret Fry will help lead the national project, examining a standardised assessment and management approach for all emergency care nurses.

Professor Fry said the evidenced-based system is needed with more than eight million people attending Australia’s 287 emergency departments each year.

“Emergency nurses are the first and sometimes only clinicians that patients see, so the quality of this initial assessment and ongoing treatment is vital. Patient safety is contingent on accurate assessment, intervention and escalation,” she said.

“There is currently no standardised way that Australia’s 29,000 emergency nurses are taught to assess and manage their patients, so the research will examine the HIRAID system, a validated framework developed by the research team.

“More than 30 NSW, Victorian and Queensland hospitals will be involved in the trial over the next five years, and if this approach proves effective, it’s likely to be adopted not only in Australia but internationally as well, across Fiji, Sri Lanka and Nepal.

“We are anticipating a positive response, and expect the training will lead to a 20 per cent reduction in inpatient deterioration events and an increase in patients reporting a good ED experience,” she said.