Her passion for cardiology was clear from the moment she began her studies at the University of Medical Sciences in the province. There she took her first steps and chose the path that would lead to her professional growth.

Leydis Torres Velázquez is the name of a young doctor, a native of the municipality of Colombia, who recently won an award in the Interesting Cases Competition for Residents at the First Congress on Heart Failure and its Risk Factors.

She did not arrive at this event by chance. She is a second-year resident specializing in cardiology at the Doctor Ernesto Guevara de la Serna General Teaching Hospital. At the event, she presented her research on trastuzumab-induced cardiotoxicity in a breast cancer patient.

All of this research is based on the high percentage of people suffering from this disease in Las Tunas, so he intends to follow them in depth to determine cardiotoxicity early on.

"That is the objective of my thesis: to complete my specialty and as a line of research for my doctorate in Medical Sciences. The concern arises because sometimes we think that cancer ended the life of a family member, and sometimes it was cardiovascular disease that ended their life.

"This is because, in many cases, we use cardiotoxic treatments. We propose to conduct a consultation for this type of patient, in addition to an initial evaluation with all the details, complementary tests, and an echocardiogram; and that a single doctor be in charge of that consultation, so that the study is valid and more reliable. We will do that evaluation at three and six months. This will allow us to characterize the population of Las Tunas."

The doctor explains that the case presented to the Congress was submitted in the open topic category. "The interesting thing about her proposal is not the type of medication or the cardiotoxicity, but the fact that this is a patient who had already had a previous event of this type, which was a serious trigger, compromising her life despite not having the best prognosis due to the progression of the cancer.

“This experience highlights the importance of cardiotoxicity studies, as it is not possible to use drugs that would be ideal in her condition, precisely because of the fatal consequences that cardiotoxic drugs have on the heart.”

ADDING CHALLENGES TO HER PROFESSIONAL LIFE

6th Symposium on CardioOncology.

With this characterization in hand, the biggest challenge begins: the doctorate. The intention is to take this whole process to a larger scale to predict cardiotoxicity early on.

So far, it is a dream, but Dr. Leydis is confident that in a short time, it will be possible to determine which patients have this pathology so that they can be treated in time and thus improve their quality of life.

"It is up to us as doctors to ask ourselves what we can do for these patients in the search for a consensus throughout the country. We know that some provinces are more advanced than others because they have specialized centers to identify such pathologies; we have managed to get other territories in the eastern region to join in."

Throughout this process, Torres Velázquez is grateful for the support of her mentor, Dr. Maikel Santos Medina, head of the national Cardio-Oncology group, who has provided her with support and advice.

Dr. Leydis is one of those young doctors who seek to put science at the service of health. She understands the importance of early diagnosis and treatment of heart failure.