As we leave San Francisco and the American College of Cardiology (ACC) behind us, en route now for China and the China Interventional Therapeutics (CIT) in Beijing, we look forward to being home again and the not too far off future, when with the springtime comes the pinnacle of our congress year, our own European, EuroPCR in May in Paris.
This year, as Editor-in-Chief of EuroIntervention, I will co-chair with Thomas Luscher, Editor-in-Chief of the European Heart Journal (EHJ), our successful annual joint plenary session of EuroIntervention and EHJ on Thursday the 23rd of May (room 352B, 14.10-15.40). Mark your calendars because we have invited, key experts representing all four of the core topics that will be accented at this year’s EuroPCR –intervention, structural heart disease, ACS and resistant hypertension– to present the most recent published data on these subjects from all major journals here in Europe and internationally. Naturally, we warmly recommend as well the “How to write a scientific manuscript and get it published!” sessions, with their inimitable blend of hands-on information and lively interactive discussions. These sessions should not be missed –remember, last year there was standing room only– and at EuroPCR 2013 they will be repeated twice, at the same time and place each day in room 253 (09.45-10.45 on Wednesday 22nd and Thursday 23rd May).
As a nice link to the ACC –and in particular the presentation of the three-year results of the PARTNER, Cohort A Trial, which were slightly mixed (rates of both stroke and all-cause mortality were similar between both groups of patients at three-year follow-up; however, more than two out of five patients died)– this month’s print issue contains an important TAVI article among others. “The 2011-12 Pilot European Sentinel Registry of Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation”1, is a remarkable endeavour whose authors report the data from 10 European countries, part of the ESC EURObservational Study Programme. The authors should be applauded with respect to the secondary objectives of this pilot phase, namely both to raise awareness and to promote the adoption of uniform definitions across Europe. Other aspects of TAVI in this issue are also noteworthy: residual paravalvular aortic regurgitation, prosthetic valve endocarditis and balloon aortic valvuloplasty as a bridge to TAVI. To put our European endeavours into an American, specifically US perspective, Michael Reardon and Jeff Popma have furnished a nice commentary on these issues.
Of course, aortic valves are not the only topical structural heart disease concern; two papers published in this current edition of our journal focus on mitral valve disease and, in particular, the assessment of mitral clips. Francesco Maisano has kindly provided a thoughtful and provocative editorial on this subject.
Although our “bread and butter” continues to be PCI, complemented recently with transcatheter valvular interventions, next month’s EuroPCR should teach us more about a relative newcomer for interventionalists, the assessment and treatment of resistant hypertension. At the ACC we learned that the evolving technique of renal denervation, which is used in the treatment of resistant hypertension, may lead to a positive side effect –fewer ventricular arrhythmias, and our horizons were further expanded when EuroIntervention published an EEP on pulmonary artery denervation last month, albeit in experimental animal models2. These are rapidly changing fields, and we look forward to being in the forefront of these changes as we follow the developments in the treatment of hypertension over the next few months…here in Europe, or, as in the case of this EEP, in China…ending this editorial as we began it, thinking about our worldwide colleagues and our increasingly international profession.
