Non-invasive and invasive approaches to microvascular disease diagnosis and coronary spasm provocation

Dr. João L. Cavalcante serves as section head of cardiac imaging at the Allina Health Minneapolis Heart Institute at Abbott Northwestern Hospital, the largest cardiology group practice in the Twin Cities. He is also director of the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation’s Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center and Core Lab, where he oversees numerous multicenter clinical trials, and he holds the inaugural Innovation Chair for the Van Tassel Innovation Center.

He is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology, the American Society of Echocardiography, the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography and the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance. His passion for multimodality imaging and his focus on valve and structural heart disease are reflected in his leadership of multiple randomized clinical trials in advanced imaging, the training of international scholars, more than 200 peer-reviewed original investigations, several book chapters, training workshops and frequent national and international lectures.

Dr. Yader Sandoval is an interventional cardiologist with the Allina Health Minneapolis Heart Institute and serves as co-chair of the Center for Coronary Artery Disease at the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation. He is also an adjunct associate professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science.

Dr. Sandoval is a physician-investigator focused on the diagnosis and management of patients with acute and chronic coronary syndromes and complex percutaneous coronary interventions. He has expertise in coronary artery disease, including coronary physiology, coronary imaging, coronary revascularization and cardiac biomarkers. He has authored more than 300 peer-reviewed manuscripts, with publications in The Lancet, JAMA, JACC and Circulation. He served on the writing committee for the 2025 AHA/ACC ACS guidelines and has held leadership roles such as chair of the SCAI/SCCT Scientific Roundtable on coronary computed tomography angiography to guide percutaneous coronary intervention and co-chair of the 2024 SCAI expert consensus statement on the management of patients with STEMI referred for primary PCI. He is also a member of the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry Committee on Clinical Applications of Cardiac Biomarkers.

Additionally, Dr. Sandoval has served on the American College of Cardiology Interventional Section Leadership Council and the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions Ischemic Heart Disease Council. A dedicated educator, he was selected for the 2022 ACC Emerging Faculty Leadership Academy and previously received the Mayo Clinic Interventional Cardiology Teacher of the Year Award. Dr. Sandoval is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology, the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions, and the European Society of Cardiology.