EPIC
2002: Emory Presents Comprehensive Update on Cutting Edge Interventional
Cardiology Medicine
Breakthroughs
in interventional cardiology have resulted in rapidly evolving new technologies
and therapies for fighting heart disease and repairing damaged hearts.
But how do cardiologists, and other cardiac care health professionals
learn first hand about these advances -- from coated stents used to
keep arteries opened after angioplasty to innovative drug therapies
and a new procedure that can close holes in the heart without surgery?
Many heart specialists from
around the country seeking an update on these advances and other practical
issues at the cutting edge of cardiovascular medicine will head to the
Emory campus this week for EPIC 2002: State of the Art Coronary and
Peripheral Intervention.
Now in its third decade,
EPIC (Emory Practical Intervention Course) offers cardiology specialists
demonstrations of coronary and peripheral vascular interventions broadcast
live from both Emory University Hospital and the Mayo Clinic. The course,
held at the Emory Conference Center Hotel in Atlanta April 18 – 20,
also features an international faculty of world-renown cardiologists
who will take part in lectures, debates and interactive case demonstrations.
"It is particularly appropriate
that this course is offered at Emory, one of the birthplaces of interventional
cardiology," notes Douglas Morris, M.D., Director of the Emory Heart
Center, who will participate in both live case demonstrations and lectures.
Emory's role in the development
of interventional cardiology began in l980, when pioneering cardiologist
Andreas Gruentzig, M.D., joined the Emory medical faculty. In 1977,
while living in Zurich, Switzerland, Dr. Gruentzig had inserted a catheter
into a man's clogged coronary artery and inflated a tiny balloon, successfully
opening a blockage and restoring blood flow to the patient's heart.
At Emory, Gruentzig, worked with other cardiologists to vigorously research
and refine this intervention, soon to be known as "angioplasty" that
was destined to revolutionize cardiology.
Following Dr. Gruentzig's
death in l985, The Andreas Gruentzig Cardiovascular Center of Emory
University was created to continue cutting edge interventional cardiology
research and to foster clinical excellence in the practice of interventional
cardiology. Gruentzig Center interventional cardiologists have now performed
over 35,000 coronary angioplasty procedures.
The Director of the Emory
Interventional Service and course director of EPIC 2002, John S. Douglas,
Jr., M.D., was a colleague of Dr. Gruentzig . Dr. Douglas worked to
refine the technique of coronary angioplasty and also personally participated
in another historic advance in interventional cardiology. In l987, Dr.
Douglas inserted the first stent -- a tiny, metal tube-like object that
helps keep arteries open after angioplasty -- in an American patient.
Today, three-fourths of all patients undergoing angioplasties receive
stents.
"Interventional cardiology
is moving very quickly. Some of the most innovative procedures we'll
discuss at EPIC 2002 may well be standard practice in a couple of years,"
Dr. Morris comments. "This is a very exciting time for everyone working
in the field of cardiology -- and for our patients."
"EPIC 2002" is presented
by the Emory University School of Medicine, the Andreas Gruentzig Cardiovascular
Center and The Emory Heart Center.
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