AHA Scientific Sessions 2026: Key trends include AI, negative trial results and multidisciplinary care
The American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2026 ran Nov. 6-9 at the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago.
Joanna Chikwe, MD, volunteer chair of the meeting and chair of the department of cardiac surgery for the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai, spoke to Cardiovascular Business about some of the biggest trends seen at the four-day event. For example, she said the conference showed how rapidly artificial intelligence (AI) and other advanced technologies are changing cardiovascular care.
"I'm excited and want to see more of much faster AI deployed into the electronic health record because it can personalize care done right," Chikwe told Cardiovascular Business. "It will allow us to leverage registries, clinical trials, an entire evidence base, all of your biomarkers, your risk profile and allow us to make much less biased and more accurate personalized decisions about healthcare together. That's aside from it making our work and our lives a lot more efficient."
She said agentic AI is emerging as one of the most significant trends with its potential to change how healthcare providers interact with patients, deliver care and even conduct research. During the meeting, Nate Gross, MD, head of health at OpenAI, discussed the opportunities and challenges facing companies developing AI technologies for healthcare. Chikwe said the technology's potential extends well beyond administrative automation.
Agentic AI can search large datasets, identify patterns and translate information into actionable insights. Chikwe said she is particularly interested in seeing these capabilities more rapidly integrated into electronic health records.
Properly implemented, she said AI could help clinicians personalize treatment by bringing together information from clinical trials, patient registries, biomarkers and individual risk profiles. This could support more accurate, less biased treatment decisions while improving efficiency and giving clinicians more time with patients.
However, she added, realizing this potential is still expected to take a lot of work.
"If we can navigate that and if we can also navigate this tendency of health systems and organizations to try and hold on to their data in these silos and figure out a way to make richer repositories that cover populations, the potential is very close to unlimited," Chikwe said.
Learning from negative clinical trials
Another major theme was the importance of understanding clinical trials that fail to demonstrate their intended benefits. Chikwe pointed to several late-breaking studies presented at the meeting and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, noting that many produced negative results. Rather than simply reporting the findings, AHA devoted substantial time to examining why the studies did not achieve their objectives and what researchers could learn from the findings.
She highlighted discussions surrounding the opening late-breaking presentations for the ZEUS trial looking at an IL-6 inhibitor to treat coronary inflammation and the HORIZON trial that evaluated a new drug to treat lipoprotein(a). Both failed to meet their primary outcomes, which prompted a deeper consideration of alternative approaches to evaluating therapies and identifying treatment benefits. AHA dedicated spare time in the session with additional speakers to help explain what went wrong on their two highly anticipated trials. The main arena was jam-packed with attendees for that discussion, which looked at such techniques as evaluating drug combinations and examining specific patient subgroups that might respond differently to treatment.
Chikwe said the strong attendance during sessions examining negative trials demonstrated that researchers and clinicians want more than headline results; they want to understand why a study failed and how those findings can inform future research and therapeutic development.
The discussions also highlighted the value of sophisticated statistical approaches and deeper analyses of existing clinical trial datasets, even when the original results are disappointing.
Technology adoption and the heart team
Chikwe also pointed to a gap between the availability of new cardiovascular technologies and their adoption in everyday clinical practice. She cited comments in a keynote speech by cardiologist Eric Topol, MD, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. He spoke about emerging diagnostic technologies, including handheld ECG and ultrasound systems, and said polygenic testing is becoming less expensive and readily accessible, but remains underused. Even when clinicians obtain the results, they may not necessarily know how to incorporate them into patient management.
Another major theme was the importance of multidisciplinary heart teams. Chikwe said the AHA meeting brings together cardiologists, cardiac surgeons, interventionalists, critical care specialists and basic and translational scientists, creating opportunities for collaborations across specialties. She said this approach is particularly important as cardiovascular technologies and treatment options become increasingly complex.
As a cardiac surgeon, she also shared her interest in findings from the PROGRESS trial, which is evaluating the early intervention in patients with moderate aortic stenosis using transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR). Secondary outcomes discussed at the meeting raised questions about whether earlier treatment could benefit patients when interventions are safe and offer durable results.
Ultimately, Chikwe said the meeting reinforced the need to combine technological advances with collaborative, patient-centered care. In an era of rapid transformation, she said, multidisciplinary teams will be essential to ensuring that increasingly sophisticated diagnostic tools, AI capabilities and therapeutic options translate into better decisions and outcomes for patients.
Dave Fornell has covered healthcare for more than 17 years, with a focus in cardiology and radiology. Fornell is a 5-time winner of a Jesse H. Neal Award, the most prestigious editorial honors in the field of specialized journalism. The wins included best technical content, best use of social media and best COVID-19 coverage. Fornell was also a three-time Neal finalist for best range of work by a single author. He produces more than 100 editorial videos each year, most of them interviews with key opinion leaders in medicine. He also writes technical articles, covers key trends, conducts video hospital site visits, and is very involved with social media. E-mail: [email protected]