Several abstracts presented at AHA 2025 draw from NCDR data to fuel their analyses. Read about their results below.

Comparison of Risk Factors in South Asian and White Patients Before and After PCI: In a retrospective review of ACC’s CathPCI Registry data from a single site, Jui Malwanker, MD, et al., included 4,289 patients that underwent PCI, comparing coronary artery disease risk factors among South Asian and White patients. They found that South Asian patients had on average a better lipid profile, lower baseline BMI and higher A1c compared to White patients preprocedure. At one-year postprocedure, differences in lipid profile and BMI were no longer prevalent while the significantly higher A1c among South Asian patients persisted. These findings reveal “a missed opportunity to optimize glycemic control in [South Asian] patients similar to lipid control in White patients.”

Outcomes Following LAAC in Older Adults With Different Levels of Frailty: Emily P. Zeitler, MD, FACC, et al., included 21,595 patients from ACC’s LAAO Registry to determine the impact of age and frailty on outcomes in patients undergoing left atrial appendage closure (LAAC). Key safety events were death, ischemic stroke, systemic embolism and device/procedure-related events. Results showed a significant association between frailty and the composite safety endpoint as well as 45-day mortality (p<0.01 for both). When comparing outcomes of those ≥80 years vs. <80 years, safety event rates were similar (0.27% vs. 0.16%; p=0.10), but mortality was higher among the older group (0.18% vs. 0.05%; p<0.01).

Outcomes of Stylet-Driven vs. Non-Stylet-Driven Leads For Conduction System Pacing: Aashish Katapadi, MD, et al., compared stylet-driven and non-stylet-driven leads implantation for His-bundle pacing and left bundle branch area pacing, looking at 11,412 patients from ACC’s EP Device Implant Registry. They found that implant success was high with both strategies, with stylet-driven leads exhibiting a slightly higher success rate (98.4% vs. 96.2%, p<0.001). Complication rates were low and comparable between the two groups (2.8% vs. 2.1%; p=0.089).

Therapeutic Gaps in Lipid Management Among Patients With Prior ASCVD Hospitalized With AMI: Investigating the quality of lipid management for patients with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) hospitalized for acute myocardial infarction (AMI), Mohammad Essa, MD, MPH, et al., included 217,812 patients captured by ACC’s Chest Pain – MI Registry. They found that nearly 32% of patients were not prescribed a statin, and just 3.7% were prescribed combination lipid-lowering therapy prior to hospital admission. Only 10.7% of patients were discharged with combination lipid-lowering therapy.

Using Machine Learning Methods to Predict Adverse Events in Patients Undergoing Transcatheter LAAO: Prediction of major in-hospital adverse events in patients undergoing transcatheter left atrial appendage occlusion (LAAO) with the XG Boost machine learning method outperformed standard methods except for predicting very rare events. Kamil Faridi, MD, et al., included 57,192 LAAO procedures to develop the risk model and 24,511 for validation, all from ACC’s LAAO Registry.

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Interested in using the largest repository of cardiovascular data to test your hypotheses? Submit a research proposal to use NCDR data by Feb. 6, 2026. Plus, learn more about opportunities for funding and the NCDR Mentorship Program.

Keywords: National Cardiovascular Data Registries, CathPCI Registry, LAAO Registry, AHA25, AHA Annual Scientific Sessions