Mariusz Tomaniak, PhD, laureate of the President’s Award of the Polish Society of Cardiology

This prestigious distinction is awarded for original scientific achievements and innovative implementation in the area of cardiology. Our scientist was recognised for a series of publications on new antiplatelet management regimes in acute and chronic coronary syndromes in patients at high risk of ischaemic and haemorrhagic complications.

The laureate’s award-winning work demonstrated greater safety with the same efficacy of using 11 months of ticagrelor monotherapy after PCI for ACS following one month of DAPT, compared to patients taking 12 months of DAPT consisting of ticagrelor and acetylsalicylic acid. The benefits also proved observable in patients undergoing complex PCI procedures, as well as in the group at increased risk of thrombotic and haemorrhagic complications. This relates to patients over 75 years of age, and patients with impaired renal function. In the case of population with COPD, treatment with ticagrelor in monotherapy did not increase the incidence of drug-related dyspnoea.

In an earlier study, Mariusz Tomaniak, PhD, demonstrated that prasugrel administered prior to elective PCI to patients with inadequate platelet aggregation inhibition after clopidogrel may be associated with less perioperative myocardial damage.

In addition, during the XXVI International Congress of the Polish Cardiac Society which is currently underway, Mariusz Tomaniak, PhD, was awarded the PTK Scientific Grant in cooperation with Servier. The grant was funded for a project titled “Acetylsalicylic acid at a low (30 mg) dose vs. standard low dose (75 mg) in a population of patients over 65 years of age undergoing PCI for acute coronary syndrome: an open-label, randomised, cross-over study.”

Mariusz Tomaniak, PhD, is an employee of the First Faculty and Department of Cardiology at the UCC WUM, headed by Professor Marcin Grabowski. His scientific interests focus on ischaemic heart disease. He specialises in non-invasive and invasive functional assessment of coronary artery lesions based on the development of methods (FFR/iFR) and new algorithms for computer modelling of fluid dynamics in the diagnosis of acute and chronic coronary syndromes. He has directly contributed to the development and validation of new software

for FFR analysis based on angiography alone – the vessel Fractional Flow Reserve (vFFR). He was one of the first researchers to demonstrate the usefulness of the developed algorithms in predicting the effects of PCI (residual vFFR rate) based on angiography alone and computer modelling of the vessel geometry, the so-called virtual PCI. He developed his clinical and scientific experience both at the I Faculty of Cardiology at the MUW, as well as during a long-term collaboration with Erasmus MC, Thorax Center in Rotterdam. In 2015 he was a scholarship Fellow of the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education and Science; in 2018 became the Laureate of the ESC grant; in 2020 Laureate of the Minister of Health’s Award for Academic Teachers and the Prime Minister’s Award for the best habilitation in medical sciences.