Beat SCAD walk and research update

50 walkers including 20 SCAD patients joined our walk

It was wonderful to see so many people at our first face-to-face event since before the pandemic!

50 people including 20 SCAD patients attended the Beat SCAD Walk on 11 June at the Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre and Country Park and we had glorious sunshine for our picnic and walk.

SCAD expert and research lead Dr David Adlam joined us, along with six members of his clinical research teams. We were also very pleased to welcome Dr Jacek Kadziela, a SCAD researcher and clinician based in Warsaw, who was visiting to see how the Leicester SCAD clinic is run.

Following the walk Dr Adlam updated us on some of the most recent research papers including Pregnancy and Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection: Lessons From Survivors and Nonsurvivors. Click here to read a summary article. LINK TO DOWNLOADS Dr Adlam explained that pregnancy-related SCAD (P-SCAD) predominantly occurs in the first six months post-partum, with few cases occurring during pregnancy.

Using European SCAD registry data from 1984 to 2021, this new research included 82 women with P-SCAD and 28 women who became pregnant after SCAD (37 pregnancies). Only five of the 82 P-SCAD cases occurred during pregnancy. Researchers also evaluated 13 fatal P-SCAD cases from a UK review of maternal deaths, 10 of which happened after pregnancy.

Another paper (Prevalence and Disease Spectrum of Extracoronary Arterial Abnormalities in Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection)   investigated how common issues in non-coronary arteries are and their importance for SCAD patients. Dr Adlam explained that the most common condition is Fibromuscular Dysplasia (FMD) and occasional aneurisms and dissections in affected arteries. He said that problems arising from these are extremely uncommon for SCAD patients.

SCAD patients, families and friends were then invited to ask any questions they had and subjects covered included medications, hormones, emotional stress, genetics, ongoing chest pain and post-SCAD psychological issues.

Dr Adlam also announced that he has appointed a new Research Fellow, whose work will be partially funded by Beat SCAD. Dr Nathan Chan has already done some research into SCAD. He was one of the authors of the paper about extracoronary abnormalities and was the lead author on the P-SCAD paper (see above). Dr Chan will join the team in August and we’re very excited to see what his research will focus on.

One our fundraising activities is our shop and Trustee Harriet Mulvaney brought along some of our merchandise, including our new-style hoodies, zoodies and t-shirts. Thanks to everyone who bought items from the shop – we took just over £670, which is a fantastic total.

Beat SCAD co-founder and trustee chair, Rebecca Breslin said “It was fantastic to return to an in-person Beat SCAD event. The charity performs a huge amount of work online, particularly providing support to the community via social media platforms, but you cannot beat the experience of getting together face-to-face and talking to others who have shared a similar path. Dr Adlam is so generous with his time and energy to support the SCAD community, and it was wonderful to be joined by so many of his colleagues from the Leicester team also. Thank you to all who attended and made it such an enjoyable day.”

Thanks to…

A big thanks to Dr Adlam for taking the time to talk to patients and answer questions. We are very lucky to have such a dedicated and passionate people on the research and clinical teams and we presented three of the team members, Jay Moth, Jane Plume and Vanessa Hollings with some flowers as a gesture of our appreciation for their hard work and support for patients.

Thanks to former Beat SCAD Trustee Karen Rockell and her husband Clive for doing a recce of the walk route a few weeks ago and for leading the walk. And to Sam Wellington, who dived in and helped Trustee Sarah Coombes with the registrations!

Thanks also go to Sophie Black and her team, Edward Harvey and Ian Cudmore, who took photos and filmed the day, including Dr Adlam’s talk. You can see a highlights video here.

And finally… as well as being a support event, our walks are also an opportunity to fundraise. We are working to raise £25,000 to support the work of Dr Chan, the new Clinical Research Fellow. A big thanks to everyone who donated and raised money by doing the walk.

You can watch the video of the day here.

Beat SCAD walk and research update