The Maltese Cardiac Society conference 2014 was held from October 17 to 19 at Mater Dei Hospital. The huge success of last year’s conference motivated the scientific and organising committees to work hard on turning our national cardiology conference into an international one.
Nine foreign speakers of high international repute honoured us by their participation. These included Perry Elliot, from the Heart Hospital, University College London, chairman of the 2014 European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Guidelines on the diagnosis and management of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and Raphael Rosenhek, from the Medical University, Vienna, who has held multiple positions in the ESC working group on valvular heart disease. This resulted in a very busy and highly academic programme.
The theme of this year’s conference was ‘Prevention of cardiovascular disease’. Registration exceeded all our expectations with 600 participants from various disciplines involved in cardiac care, including cardiologists and cardiac surgeons, physicians, primary care doctors, nurses, radiographers, physiological measurement technicians and physiotherapists. For the first time ever, the conference was attended by foreign professionals from Italy and Serbia.
After an opening speech by myself and the Parliamentary Secretary for Health, Chris Fearne, highlighting the achievements of the Department of Cardiology over the past six months, namely the reduction in the waiting lists, the setting up of daily academic meetings and the introduction of new services, such as left atrial appendage closure and antibiotic envelopes, the focus shifted to the main theme.
The Department of Cardiology of Mater Dei Hospital is proud of its minimally invasive transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) programme. A record number of TAVI procedures have already been performed this year.
Patients who previously were not suitable for aortic valve replacement surgery are now undergoing this life-prolonging intervention. It was therefore appropriate that the opening session be dedicated to ‘Structural and valvular heart disease in 2014’.
Albert Fenech, past president of the society, joined me to co-chair the session. It was addressed by Joe De Giovanni, consultant cardiologist at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, by Alex Manchè, consultant cardiac surgeon, and by Ahmed Khattab, from Bern University Hospital, Switzerland. The results of recent advances in minimally invasive valve replacement and structural heart disease interventions were illustrated and the precise timing for TAVI discussed.
In the session entitled ‘New frontiers in cardiac imaging’, the new imaging modalities CT calcium scoring, CT coronary angiography and cardiac MRI were shown.
Petros Danias, of Hygeia Hospital, Athens, spoke on the clinical utility of cardiac MRI for patients with congestive heart failure. Patients are being sent abroad for a cardiac MRI but with the appointment of a new imaging consultant cardiologist and the acquisition of the necessary equipment, Mater Dei can soon provide this service.
A session focused on a major challenge Malta faces: obesity.
Maltese males lead the world in obesity. Maltese females come second in the world list of most obese. This problem begins in childhood. It was for this reason that the organising committee decided to involve the policymakers.
In his address, Education Minister Evarist Bartolo agreed that concrete action was immediately needed to tackle obesity, which is resulting in spiralling costs for the health service. He underlined various initiatives to be taken by schools including a nationwide study on obesity among schoolchildren.
The importance of prevention of cardiovascular disease was highlighted
Research is now being strongly encouraged in the Department of Cardiology. The society’s conference gives our researchers the opportunity to showcase their work. Submissions this year doubled and the quality kept improving as evidenced by many presentations on PhDs being carried out in the field. Besides research studies, a number of audits carried out at Mater Dei were presented. The outcome of these audits will be utilised to improve the quality of care we provide to cardiac patients.
The conference included novel workshops during one of which Timothy Kinniard, from the University Hospital Wales, gave a highly stimulating presentation on optical coherence tomography.
In line with our belief in all the key players of our multidisciplinary team, allied healthcare professional sessions were held for the first time. These were co-chaired by Diego Catania, president of the Italian Association of Interventional Radiographers. The speakers gave very high quality talks to packed rooms.
To pass on the message of the importance of prevention of cardiovascular disease to the public, a public awareness drive was held on Sunday morning at Mater Dei. This was run by the medical students through the Malta Medical School Association. An open day at the cardiac catheterisation suite was very well attended.
The highlight of this year’s conference was a very special session entitled ‘Meet the ESC working groups’. Raphael Rosenhek delivered a lecture on ‘Timing of surgery in mitral regurgitation’ and Perry Elliot gave a talk on ‘Prevention of sudden cardiac death in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy’.
Besides considerably increasing the academic quality of the conference itself, hosting such foreign high-profile speakers and inviting among us foreign participants, provided us with a golden opportunity to network with international colleagues for the benefit of cardiac patients in Malta.
Robert Xuereb is president of the Maltese Cardiac Society.