On Wednesday 29 October 2025, S. Abou Kamar  will defend the doctoral thesis titled: Echocardiographic Characteristics and Blood Biomarkers In Heart Failure: Towards a deeper understanding
- Promotor
- Promotor
- Co-promotor
- Co-promotor
- Date
- Wednesday 29 Oct 2025, 13:00 - 14:30
- Type
- PhD defence
- Space
- Professor Andries Querido room
- Building
- Education Center
- Location
- Erasmus MC
Below is a brief summary of the dissertation:
This thesis explores heart failure (HF), focusing on epidemiology, echocardiographic parameters and biomarkers. The early chapters analyze data from large studies, revealing that the risk of death and readmission rises significantly with worsening HF. In chronic HF, advanced echocardiographic measures like global longitudinal strain (GLS) were found to provide better prognostic value than traditional measures, like ejection fraction (LVEF), particularly for long-term predictions. Left atrial strain (LASr) was also valuable, especially in patients with impaired heart function. The role of biomarkers, such as IGFBP7, was examined for early HF detection, even in individuals with low NT-proBNP levels. Proteomics provided promising insights into the biochemical processes driving various HF stages, and serial biomarker monitoring could help track disease progression, particularly in relation to pulmonary artery pressure (mPAP).
- More information
The public defence will start exactly at 13.00 hrs. The doors will be closed once the public defence starts, latecomers cannot access the hall. Given the solemn nature of the meeting, we advise not to bring children under the age of 6 to the first part of the ceremony.
A livestream link has been provided to candidate.
