Annemarie Hennessy, AM is the Foundation Professor of Medicine at the School of Medicine at the University of Western Sydney. She has been researching preeclampsia since 1991 and has contributed in the areas of physiology, molecular placental studies and the epidemiology of preeclampsia. She works with a team encompassing clincians and scientists from Central and South Western Sydney and she has many international collaborators. ABSTRACT Pricilla Kincaid-Smith Lecture: Preeclampsia, Lipids and Long Term Cardiovascular Outcomes Hennessy A. School of Medicine, Western Sydney University, Campbelltown, The Heart Research Institute, Sydney Australia. We now understand that preeclampsia is not just an event of pregnancy, but a significant cardiovascular event that marks a future with increased cardiovascular risk. Whether the risk is due to a predetermined cardiovascular profile (e.g. chronic hypertension), or is conferred by normal or exaggerated responses in pregnancy (e.g. lipid profile changes) or is in fact a superimposed irreversible vascular event is still being determined. The type of cardiovascular outcome is also unclear for all cases as is the contribution of individual components of a cardiovascular risk factor profile as is the individual components of preeclampsia. This presentation will examine the tools available to examine pregnancy-related factors which contribute to long term cardiovascular outcomes. The data available from recent large scale epidemiological studies will be presented, as well as the possible mechanisms of placental regulation that may indicate for the first time mechanisms of lipid effect and protection against preeclampsia. The emerging studies which alter placental factors in response to metabolic and lipid control will need to be carefully examined in target populations to determine whether it is safe, feasible or even possible to target individual risk factors to prevent preeclampsia and thus later-life cardiovascular disease. |
