Cath Lab Digest

The First International CLI Summit on Lower Extremity PVD and Critical Limb Ischemia
A Pre New Cardiovascular Horizons Event
October 26-27, 2005, New Orleans Marriott, New Orleans, Louisiana
www.clisummit.com

New Cardiovascular Horizons and Management of the Diabetic Foot & Wound Healing
October 27-29, 2005, New Orleans Marriott, New Orleans, Louisiana
www.newcvhorizons.com

Can you tell us about the history and philosophy behind the New Cardiovascular Horizons meeting?
New Cardiovascular Horizons (NCVH) began in 2000 as a small, local, multi-disciplinary meeting. I would stress “multi-disciplinary,” because that’s the way that our group, Cardiovascular Institute of the South, practices. We treat our patients from head to toe. The first NCVH meeting was so successful that we grew and spread to all disciplines that were primarily involved with the treatment of cardiovascular disease, especially peripheral vascular disease (PVD).

In its second and third years, NCVH expanded into podiatry, wound care, and sessions for the cath lab tech, RN and whole range of cardiovascular health care givers. We also started the Masters and Legends program and honored our achievement award winners, who span various disciplines. Our first award winner was Julio Palmaz, a cardiologist, and then the next year, Edward Diethrich, a surgeon. In 2003, the award was presented to Martin Leon, a cardiologist, and in 2004, to Thomas Fogerty, a surgeon. This year, we are presenting the achievement award to John Simpson, a cardiologist. These are the true “living legends” of our discipline.

The faculty we invited the first and second years gave excellent reviews and they liked the concept of a multi-disciplinary approach because no one else was doing it. Their positive response really enabled us to grow and to put together our Masters and Legends program. This is a single day that features the true living masters and legends in the cardiovascular and especially endovascular fields. It struck me that our specialty is so new that the true legends are still living and with us today. Instead of having these legends speak only for 8-10 minutes, we give them all 30 minutes to develop an in-depth presentation. No one has ever put together that kind of a lineup of physicians at one time, and it has been very well received.

Simultaneous with our positive cardiovascular faculty feedback, the podiatry, wound-care and all of the other disciplines faculty and attendees also provided great feedback. As a result, we were able to attract the leading physicians and specialists in each of the non-cardiovascular specialties as well, with equally noted faculty like Larry Harkless, David Armstrong, Andrew Boulton and John Steinberg, who are all “legends” in their respective disciplines. Likewise, we were able to do the same thing with nursing, primary care, internal medicine and endocrinology. The other secret was that we had excellent support from industry, because no one else was doing this type of meeting. As a result, NCVH grew from 500 to over 3500 attendees in only a five-year period.

Have you seen the field change drastically in the past five years in a way that justifies creating NCVH as a multi-disciplinary conference?
Absolutely. Especially in the endovascular field. Five years ago, we were thinking about carotid stenting. Now it’s FDA-approved. Five years ago we were thinking about EVAR for aneurysms. Now it’s routine. Five years ago there was no drug-eluting coronary stent. Now, again, it’s routine. Five years ago, there was no atherectomy device, no PolarCath, and laser was there, but no one really understood it. Similarly, we didn’t have the same wires and the same chronic total occlusion devices, so the endovascular treatment of the superficial femoral and infrapopliteal arteries and critical limb ischemia was almost non-existent. I just mentioned at least five new technologies that did not exist on the market only 3-4 short years ago. In the wound care and pharmaceutical fields, we now have better drugs, better local wound care therapies, and CTA. CT angiography was not even available three years ago. Now there is a whole exploding field also in the diagnostic and imaging areas for cardiovascular diseases and CLI.

This year, 2005, also marks two important “firsts” for New Cardiovascular Horizons: the first CLI International Summit and the first Renaissance Summit.

Five years ago, we didn’t even understand critical limb ischemia (CLI). CLI is what I’d call a “hot topic.” Right now, we understand more about it, we’re enhancing that awareness further, and we now have a “tool box” to treat CLI that we never had previously. Five years ago, we had primarily a pathway to amputation. Today, it’s important that we develop a pathway to limb salvage, because it’s possible to diagnose CLI and treat it much differently. To reflect this developing reality, in our sixth year of building upon NCVH, we’ve added the inaugural, international, multi-disciplinary CLI Summit that will immediately precede the NCVH meeting. The CLI Summit has been very well accepted by the U.S. and international communities. We will have multiple, live limb-salvage cases, and a world-class faculty of cardiologists, surgeons, wound-care specialists, podiatrists, orthopedic surgeons and all that are interested in achieving limb salvage.