Annual Research Symposium

Only abstracts for research studies are accepted. These studies must use scientific methods to answer a research question—either descriptive or comparative—or to test a research hypothesis posed in advance. Abstracts based on case reports will not be accepted.

If the submitted abstract is part of a Research Scholarship Course (MDR 7910) project, students must obtain approval from their primary faculty mentor before submission.

Note: Only graduate, medical, or resident research projects are eligible. Undergraduate student projects will not be accepted.

Abstracts must not exceed 3,000 characters (approximately 350 words), excluding the title and the names of the investigators. Each abstract should include the following sections:

• Introduction and Objective. Provide background or context for the study and clearly state the primary objective or research question.
• Methods. Describe the study procedures (study design, selection of participants, settings, main variables and measurements, and analytical methods).
• Results. Summarize the main findings, including specific effect sizes and their statistical (confidence intervals, p-values) and clinical / research significance, if possible.
• Conclusions and Implications. Present only conclusions directly supported by the results, along with any relevant practical implications.

Please submit your abstract on Qualtrics.

Written below is an example of a well-formatted abstract ready for submission.

Introduction and Objective: Hispanics have the second highest incidence of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in the US. There is evidence that high troponin levels are associated with longer hospital stays and a higher 30-day mortality in patients presenting with AMI. This study aimed to determine whether peak troponin levels are associated with in-hospital mortality in Puerto Rican patients hospitalized with AMI.

Methods: Non-concurrent cohort conducted through the secondary analysis of the Puerto Rico Cardiovascular Disease Surveillance database. The study included 2,962 patients hospitalized with an AMI in 21 Puerto Rican hospitals during 2007, 2009, and 2011. The main independent variable was peak troponin I levels (cTnI) within 24 hours of symptom onset, and the dependent variable was in-hospital mortality. cTnI were dichotomized as normal or abnormal according to the values set by each participating hospital laboratory. A descriptive analysis determined whether the two exposure groups were similar regarding potential confounders (age, gender, time since symptom onset, recent surgery, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes mellitus, in-hospital complications, and smoking). Multivariable analysis was conducted to determine the association of peak troponin levels and in-hospital mortality (measured using adjusted odds ratios) while controlling for potential confounders.

Results: After adjusting for age, gender, hypertension, and the presence of in-hospital complications (atrial fibrillation, ventricular tachycardia, ventricular fibrillation, shock and/or cardiac arrest), patients with abnormal peak cTnl were twice as likely to die in the hospital (OR 2.1; 95% CI= 1.3-3.3). Adjusted analysis further showed that age and in-hospital complications were significantly associated with in-hospital mortality (OR 1.1, 95% CI= 1.1-2.8; OR 4.8, 95% CI= 3.2-7.0, respectively). Hypertension was protective, resulting in a 56% decrease in odds of death (OR 0.4; 95% CI 0.3-0.6). The odds of in-hospital mortality were similar between men and women.

Conclusions and Implications: Puerto Rican patients with incident AMI and abnormal peak troponin levels have twice the odds of experiencing in-hospital death. Such patients may benefit from more timely diagnosis, aggressive monitoring, and management at the time of admission. The apparent protective effect of hypertension may be explained by hypertensive patients being treated with beta-blockers prior to their MI.