DIRECTOR's LETTER
Dear Colleagues,
Welcome to the 21st Pediatric and Adult Interventional Cardiac Symposium – PICS-AICS meeting! The meeting is returning to the Las Vegas at the MGM Grand, home to so many great events over the decades. This year’s meeting will focus on how our decisions affect our outcomes. The live cases remain the focal point of the meeting. Live cases will be beamed from nine national and international venues with experienced operators that will demonstrate the latest in medical device technology using approved and investigational devices, stents and valves. The live cases this year will be transmitted live via satellite from: Riyadh, Doha, Sao Paolo, New York, Columbus, San Diego, Seattle, Cincinnati and Memphis.
This year we have collaborated with 3DI3 to provide a full day on Wednesday 5th September focused on Advanced Imaging Modalities for Congenital and Structural Interventions. The imaging symposium will include live and taped cases focused on how integral advances in imaging are to driving the accuracy and success of our interventions. This will be followed by the oral abstract presentations that allow those who continue to push the boundaries of our field with their scientific endeavors to present their work on the international stage. Each day we will maintain the clinical focus of the meeting with lunchtime taped cases from 11 national and international centers. The afternoon of the second day will include a symposium dedicated to the right ventricular outflow tract with truly world-class speakers contributing from the surgical and imaging specialties. There are further sessions dedicated to cutting edge advances in stenting and also the renaissance of transcatheter PFO closure with breakout sessions for younger interventionalists, and our nursing and technologist colleagues.
Friday September 7th, begins with live cases from New York, Cincinnati and San Diego, with taped cases from Philadelphia, Cairo and Sydney. In the afternoon there will be a special Global Summit focusing on device development and determining whether there are pathways to simplify international device approval. Representatives from regulatory bodies in North America, Europe and Asia will be present. This will be followed by a session on Registries, Decision making, Quality and Outcomes. Ultimately it is our outcomes that will define us and this session will look at how we can understand and utilize these variables to allow us as interventionalists to continue to evolve with riskier cases protecting ourselves and our patients. The immensely popular breakout for our Spanish-speaking attendees will also take place later in the afternoon.
Saturday September 8th’s cases will be interposed by a session on Developments in Structural Heart Disease, including a taped case from the NIH. Other popular sessions, including “My Nightmare Case in the Cath Lab” ensure opportunity for discussion and learning from each other’s experiences. The final afternoon will provide a competitive feel as “Battle of the Continents,” a quiz-based session on all aspects of catheterization, will return for its third year with other continents vying to knock North America off its winning run over the last two years.
Poster abstracts will be displayed throughout the meeting. We will continue to support younger interventionalists through the PICS Young Leadership Program, with the winner receiving faculty status and involvement in the meeting. We also wish to recognize those committed to research with The Charles S. Kleinman, MD Scientific Scholarship Award, given in memory of our dear friend Dr. Charlie Kleinman, who was so close to the PICS family. The winner will receive a $5,000 grant towards his/her research endeavor. We also plan to continue The Terry King Traveling Fellowship Award to sponsor a colleague in a developing country to ensure the meeting continues its philosophy of developing congenital and structural catheterization throughout the world.
We look forward to welcoming you to back to Las Vegas. Please don't forget to get in shape for the 5K Run. It supports a great cause: providing funds for equipment for mission trips to the developing world. Your participation is what makes the meeting the success that it is, and we look forward to learning with you and from you.
Yours truly,
Course Directors and Co-Directors
