Jeff Sternlicht: A Heart Attack Should Not Be the Starting Line
Jeff Sternlicht, Emergency Physician and Medical Director at Vituity, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“The plaque that causes tomorrow’s heart attack is already there today.
Yet we divide cardiovascular prevention into two categories:
- Primary prevention before the first event.
- Secondary prevention after it.
Those labels are useful. But atherosclerosis does not suddenly become more real after a heart attack.
A new prespecified VESALIUS-CV analysis presented at ESC 2026 makes that point difficult to ignore.
Among more than 12,000 high-risk adults without a prior heart attack or stroke, adding evolocumab reduced the risk of a first heart attack by 36%. Five-year incidence fell from 4.1% to 2.7%.
This does not mean everyone with minimal plaque needs a PCSK9 inhibitor.
It does mean we should not wait for the first event before treating established disease seriously.
Risk factors estimate who may develop atherosclerosis. Imaging can show us who already has it.
Once plaque is present, the goal is to change its trajectory before it causes harm.
A heart attack should not be the event that finally convinces us the plaque was dangerous.”
Other posts featuring Jeff Sternlicht on Hemostasis Today.
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Nov 9, 2026, 13:48PF4-ELISA–Negative HIT: Are We Missing a New Class of Anti-PF4 Immunothrombotic Disease?
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Nov 9, 2026, 13:07Nandini Sadasivam: Gene Therapy for Sickle Cell Disease and Thalassaemia
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Nov 9, 2026, 13:04Raising Awareness of Bleeding Disorders in Women and Girls – EHC
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Nov 9, 2026, 12:59Rahul Bohra: Exploring the Complex Mechanisms of Sickle Cell Disease
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Nov 9, 2026, 12:53Three Years of Movement and Thrombosis Awareness in the Czech Republic – World Thrombosis day
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Nov 9, 2026, 12:51Octavio Marques Pontes-Neto: Intensive Blood-Pressure Control Reduces Cardiovascular Events After Ischemic Stroke
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Nov 9, 2026, 12:49Irma Bagdoniene: What Really Makes Us Live Longer
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Nov 9, 2026, 12:47Imo Akpan: Announcing the 2027 Women’s Hematology Summit
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Nov 9, 2026, 12:45Shadi Yaghi: Rethinking Antithrombotic Therapy After Stroke