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AHA Announces 2022 Early Career Investigator Award Finalists

August 16, 2022
by Elisabeth Reitman

Jonathan Hanna, MD, has been selected as a finalist for the American Heart Association’s Jay D. Coffman Early Career Investigator Award. Hanna is a resident of the Yale School of Medicine Department of Internal Medicine and worked with the Vascular Medicine Outcomes Program (VAMOS) under the mentorship of Carlos Mena-Hurtado, MD and Kim Smolderen, PhD and their team. The study Hanna will be presenting focuses on outcomes associated with the off-label use of drug eluting stents and drug coated balloons amongst patients with lower extremity peripheral artery disease and severe chronic kidney disease.

“This is a topic that has not been studied, even though there is widespread use of these devices in the real world without evidence for safety in prior done RCTs,” says Mena-Hurtado.

For VAMOS, it is the second trainee that emerges from their program as a finalist for the Coffman Award, with previously, Mahesh Anantha, MD, presenting work on the burden of critical limb ischemia. Each year the American Heart Association (AHA) Council on Peripheral Vascular Disease identifies promising researchers for the Early Career Investigator Awards. The Coffman Award was established in memory of Jay D. Coffman, MD, a thought leader in peripheral vascular medicine.

This is a topic that has not been studied, even though there is widespread use of these devices in the real world without evidence for safety in prior done RCTs.

Carlos Mena-Hurtado, MD

Hanna is furthermore the lead author of several studies with a focus on cardiovascular disease, spanning prevention to intervention, including a recent study published in the American Journal of Preventive Cardiology which demonstrates variable SGLT2i and GLP1-RA prescribing across U.S. counties. Hanna will present his abstract, “Drug-coated Balloon and Drug-eluting Stent Safety in Patients with Femoropopliteal and Severe Chronic Kidney Disease” during the AHA Scientific Sessions Annual Conference November 5–7, 2022.

Submitted by Elisabeth Reitman on August 16, 2022