The FLOURISH Group was represented across invited lectures, oral presentations, and poster research at the 10thInternational Congress on Cardiac Problems in Pregnancy in Barcelona. The meeting brings together clinicians and researchers working across cardiology, obstetrics, and maternal health, with a program focused on improving the management of cardiovascular disease during pregnancy.
Rohan D’Souza, who serves as Scientific Director of the FLOURISH Group, contributed five presentations to the congress. Three invited lectures examined adverse outcomes in pregnancies affected by valvular heart disease, maternal and fetal risks associated with anticoagulation regimens in pregnancies with mechanical heart valves, and the use of machine learning to identify indicators of adverse cardiovascular events in pregnancy. He also delivered oral presentations on labour and delivery outcomes in pregnant women with cardiac disease, and on predictive and prognostic biomarkers in peripartum cardiomyopathy.
The meeting also featured research from two graduate students under his supervision. Rizwana Ashraf presented two oral papers. One explored the lack of consistency in how severe cardiovascular complications during and after pregnancy are defined and measured across different settings. The other examined the role of anti -factor Xa monitoring in low molecular weight heparin dosing during pregnancy. Emma Woolley presented a poster on access to low molecular weight heparin during and after pregnancy in Ontario, drawing attention to the practical barriers that can still shape treatment even where standards of care are well established.
Across the congress, the group’s work returned to some of the questions that remain most difficult in cardio-obstetrics. How risk is identified before it becomes crisis. How treatment is weighed when maternal and fetal outcomes must be considered at once. How severe cardiovascular complications are defined in ways that allow meaningful comparison. How access to care can remain uneven even where the clinical standard is clear.
D’Souza said the meeting had offered “a rare chance to put closely related pieces of work before the same international audience and to hear how those questions are landing across different settings,” adding that the response had been “thoughtful and encouraging, particularly because the discussions were so clearly rooted in the practical and methodological problems the field is still trying to solve.”
