PLA Chapter Update: Moving Forward Against Changing Currents

What a year 2021 was! Despite continued disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, members of the Pacific Lipid Association (PLA) chapter were busy providing clinical care, advancing research, and publishing in all areas related to lipid management. This issue of LipidSpin is a collaboration between MWLA and PLA with a focus on “New Approaches for Managing Atherogenic Particles”. On behalf of the MWLA and PLA, I’d like to thank all who have contributed to this issue of LipidSpin.

As many in-person conferences and education sessions remained virtual, the PLA developed several webinars to provide new education on lipid-related topics. A series of three webinar events was created to offer free CME and engage NLA members, as well as other non-NLA members who may be interested in lipid-related topics. Our first webinar, “What Clinicians Need to Know about Bempedoic Acid” was held in August. PLA members Bruce Warden and Ruth Schneider presented the webinar which had over 140 attendees. Our second webinar, “Working with Patients Following Very-Low Carbohydrate and Ketogenic Diets” was held in October and presented by Dr. Daniel Soffer and previous PLA president Dr. Carol Kirkpatrick. Our third webinar is scheduled for March 2022, and will highlight recommendations from the NLA statement, “Coronary artery calcium (CAC) Scoring to guide Prevention of ASCVD”. Scheduled presenters for this upcoming webinar include Dr. Michael Blaha and former PLA president Dr. Eric Gupta. Again, these webinars provide free CME to all clinicians with a passion for improving dyslipidemia management and may help attract new members so please feel free to share with your colleagues who may be interested in joining the NLA.

The 13th Annual Orange County Symposium for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention was held virtually in October and included presentations from several PLA members. Dr. Michael Wilkinson presented on “Novel Drug Development Beyond Statins” and Geeta Sikand, RDN presented “Top 10 Dietary Strategies for Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease”. Several of our PLA members served on the NLA Clinician Tools Committee, including myself as the co-chair. One of the committee’s charges was to update current patient tear sheets and create new ones within the Clinician’s Lifestyle Modification Toolbox which can be found at https://www.lipid.org/clmt.

Dr. Carol Kirkpatrick and several RDN workgroup members have been hard at work revising all 29 patient tear sheets and plan to add a new tear sheet addressing healthy beverages in 2022. Five new patient tear sheets devoted to statin therapy were also created by the Clinician Tools Committee, with additional patient tear sheets addressing non-statin lipid lowering medications planned for 2022, that can be found at https://www.lipid.org/patient-tear-sheets. I’d like to personally thank all of the CTC members who assisted with these charges over the past year.

In February, the PLA and MWLA held the Spring Clinical Lipid Update in San Diego, CA. This conference featured many educational sessions dedicated to clinical lipid controversies, new lipid-lowering therapies, eating patterns to reduce cardiovascular risk, and team-based approaches to treat complex patient cases. The meetings are one of the things I’ve enjoyed most about the NLA is its inclusion of all clinicians to advance the practice of lipid management and reduce the global burden of cardiovascular disease.

Despite the delay to pre-COVID normalcy, our PLA members have continued to enhance lipid management through interdisciplinary clinical care and education. Strengthened by the impediments of 2020 and 2021, I see many great things to come in 2022 and beyond for our PLA chapter and the NLA as a whole. As such, I hope to see many of you in-person (and virtually) soon.

Thank you again to all of the authors for their contributions to this edition of LipidSpin.