Ashwin B. Mehta1, MD, FACC, FCCP, FISE, FICP; Upendra Kaul2, MD, DM, FCSI, FAPSIC, FACC, FAMS; Ajit Desai1, MD, DM, DNB, AFACC
AsiaIntervention 2019;5:7-8, DOI: 10.4244/AIJV5I1A1
1. Jaslok Hospital and Research Centre, Mumbai, India; 2. Batra Hospital and Medical Research Center, New Delhi, India
India Live was started in 2010 with the idea of passing on the knowledge of interventional cardiology to the next generation. The Interventional Cardiology Foundation of India was established. This flagship organisation is now a decade old.
The toughest challenge for the organisers of the 10th India Live conference was to maintain the high standard set by the preceding conferences, by simplifying interventional cardiology for young interventionists while simultaneously having sessions of advanced intervention for shaping interventionists into masters of their trade.
The India Live 2019 scientific programme starts with the Fellows Course where our primary focus is on young and upcoming interventional cardiologists. The basic concepts of interventional cardiology will be discussed throughout the day with lectures from prominent international and national speakers. The next three days focus on interventions in complex subsets such as left main diseases, bifurcation lesions, CTOs, calcified lesions, graft interventions, and peripheral interventions, and also on structural interventions such as TAVR, mitral valve interventions, LAA closures, etc. There are also 35-40 live cases from national and international centres, live-in-box sessions, where there will be stimulating, detailed discussion on the selected topic. Every session in the programme is followed by additional time for discussion with our esteemed panellists and chairpersons in order to encourage maximum participation from the audience. The quality of this tailormade programme is sure to impress all the delegates.
The theme of India Live 2019 is “An Era of Emerging Technology”. The scientific programme will showcase several technologies and innovations such as robotic interventions, orbital atherectomy, Impella, transcatheter interventions of the aortic, mitral and pulmonary valve, and the importance of coronary flow measurement during procedures as well as that of intravascular imaging. These innovations and tools will be showcased in the live cases and discussed in detail by experts in the academic sessions.
The feather in the cap of India Live 2019 is the India Live faculty which comprises the leading experienced interventional cardiologists from India as well as from abroad, who are global leaders in their field, sharing their expertise. India Live 2019 will also have a “Training Village” where delegates can get handson experience and training of the novel hardware and technology, showcased by our industry partners. Additionally, we plan to have candid, one-to-one interaction with masters in the field, for a behind the scenes look into the challenges faced by cardiologists and to unravel their “secrets of success” in the India Live Studio.
This year, it is the privilege of India Live to bestow lifetime achievement awards on three legendary interventional cardiologists – Drs Antonio Colombo, Bernhard Meier and Patrick W. Serruys. Each of these stalwarts has been a pioneer of cardiology. They have revolutionised the field of cardiology through their innovations. Prof. Antonio Colombo is one of the premier developers of the concept of coronary stent placement. His observations were pivotal in allowing the utilisation of stenting with only antiplatelet therapy, liberating this procedure from oral anticoagulation and minimising the risk of stent thrombosis. Prof. Colombo’s contribution has been pivotal for the utilisation of coronary stents in the treatment of complex coronary artery disease, formulating the concept of focal treatment and also of stenting very long lesions. Subsequently, Prof. Colombo developed various procedures for the treatment of structural heart disease such as transcatheter aortic valve implantation, correction of mitral and tricuspid regurgitation and the treatment of a number of congenital heart diseases presenting at adult age. He was Director of Research in Angioplasty at Lenox Hill Hospital, New York, USA from 1996 to 2004. For the past 15 years, Prof. Colombo has been the Director of Interventional Cardiology at San Raffaele Scientific Institute and is Professor of Cardiology at Vita-Salute University, Milan, Italy. He is a member of both European and U.S. professional societies. Prof. Colombo is connected as a board member to 10 organisations across 13 different industries. Prof. Colombo has published over 1,000 papers in peer review journals, several books in the field of coronary intervention and has contributed several chapters in important interventional cardiology books.
Prof. Bernhard Meier was actively involved with Dr Andreas Gruentzig, who performed the first human coronary angioplasty on 16th September 1977. Prof. Meier dedicated his professional life to refining and simplifying PCI and other interventional procedures derived from it. More recently, he expanded that technique to allow transaortic valve implantation without the need for a temporary pacemaker by pacing the left ventricle by the guidewire used for valve implantation. He also introduced the intracoronary ECG and coronary occlusion pressure measurements to demonstrate and quantify coronary collateralisation. Prof. Meier was an early pioneer fostering recanalisation of chronic total occlusions, introducing the ball-tipped Magnum wire in the early 1980s. In 1992, Prof. Meier was appointed Chairman of Cardiology at the University Hospital of Bern, Switzerland. On 10th September 1997, in Switzerland, he implanted the world’s first dedicated PFO device together with Kurt Amplatz. In 2002 he also implanted the world’s first left atrial appendage closure device in an awake patient without echocardiographic guidance. Prof. Meier has been a dedicated practical teacher in the catheterisation laboratory to the present date, promoting a frugal approach using minimal material. He is known to think out of the box and to preserve a sober opinion of what coronary angioplasty can do.
Prof. Patrick W. Serruys has been an interventional cardiologist since 1977, Chief of Interventional Research since 1988, the Chief of Interventional Cardiology at the Thoraxcenter from 1997-2012, and Professor of Medicine until 1st April 2014 at the Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. He is known for his contribution in setting up Cardialysis, a well-known research organisation in Europe. Currently, he is Professor of Cardiology in the Cardiovascular Science Division of the National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI) of Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom. Prof. Serruys conducted the first randomised trial with coronary stenting that led to the approval of the technique in Europe. Prof. Serruys and Eduardo Sousa in Brazil introduced the use of drug-eluting stents for the first time in the world in 1999. In 2006 Prof. Serruys introduced worldwide the use of fully biodegradable drug-eluting scaffolds that eliminated the presence of a permanent metallic foreign body in the coronary circulation. He is the author of over 1,800 publications in cardiology and interventional cardiology.
The organising committee of India Live has worked tirelessly for the last 12 months to put together this academic feast. We welcome all the delegates and faculty attending the sessions and hope that they will enjoy the conference to the fullest.
With all these achievements it is only fitting that India Live is associated with AsiaIntervention. AsiaIntervention is dedicated to providing the highest level of medical content from cutting-edge research to the latest techniques and technologies. Our ongoing aim is to continue to enhance the work of our colleagues, both regionally and internationally. In order to do this, each issue features key articles on those topics of critical interest to interventional cardiologists throughout the Asia-Pacific region and globally.
In this issue alone, along with editorials by leading experts throughout the region, you will find special reports, expert reviews and a focus on innovations as well as clinical research articles. Under coronary interventions, there is an interesting paper by A.J. Hammoudeh et al (Jordan) on impaired renal function and PCI outcome, and one from S. Ray et al (India) concerning the latest research on the nano-crush technique for bifurcation lesions. In the field of interventions for valvular disease and heart failure, we have a fascinating piece by G. SH. Cheung et al (Hong Kong) comparing three left atrial appendage occlusion (LAAO) devices for stroke prevention. Additionally, K. Shirakawa et al (Japan) look at the impact of preprocedural echocardiographic predictors of increased stroke volume (SV), a prognosticator of severe aortic stenosis (AS), after TAVR.
We are confident that as you peruse the following pages you will agree that AsiaIntervention is a valued reference for interventional medicine in our region and internationally.
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