ISET meeting promises innovation, education -- and football

The International Symposium on Endovascular Therapy in South Florida from Jan. 28 to Feb. 1 could easily be overshadowed by Super Bowl hype were it not for Dr. Archie Roberts.

Roberts, a backup quarterback with the Miami Dolphins in the 1960s, is founder and director of the Living Heart Foundation, a nonprofit entity that provides health screenings for active and retired professional football players.

The Foundation will screen about 60 retired football players for coronary calcium on Saturday, Jan. 27, a day set aside for a stand-alone pre-ISET CT angiography course. Roberts also will host a lunchtime session exploring the cardiovascular risk factors of retired players.

Nearly 300 people have registered for the CTA course, which will offer didactic and proctored case reviews, according to course director Dr. Barry Katzen. The faculty includes cardiologists (such as Dr. Dan Berman), radiologists (such as Dr. David Dowe), and vascular surgeon Dr. Roy Greenberg.

The meeting has grown by about 10% in each of the last few years, Katzen said. This year's new venue, the Westin Diplomat Resort and Spa in Hollywood, FL, will have plenty of room for the expected 2000-plus registrants.

Live case demonstrations, a mainstay of ISET, will offer registrants a peak at new technology. Interventionalists at the University of Florida, Gainesville will be working with a new self-expanding iliac stent from Medtronic, not yet seen in the U.S., which offers precise controlled delivery, Katzen said. Satellite transmission will show interventionalists from Germany demonstrating a new thoracic endograft from Medtronic. The polyester device with metal attachments is currently in clinical trials.

Several trial updates will be presented, including first-time results from the RESILIENT Trial, a prospective randomized multicenter trial designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of superficial femoral artery (SFA) stenting using the Lifestent NT self-expanding nitinol stent compared with balloon angioplasty alone.

Data will be shared from the first 100 patients enrolled in the XCELL trial, which is testing the biliary Xpert expandable nitinol stent to treat critical limb ischemia.

The symposium will host several debates on controversial topics:

• Should carotid artery stenting be more widely utilized?

• What is the best approach to treat long-segment SFA disease?

• Is endovascular treatment of patent foramen ovale overutilized?

Carotid stenting is the topic of the keynote address, to be delivered by Dr. William A. Gray, director of endovascular services at the Center for Interventional Vascular Therapy at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center. Dr. Robert Vogelzang, recent past president of the Society of Interventional Radiology, will give the Tegtmeyer lecture: "The Medical Ethics of Medical Malpractice Reform."

Nine concurrent sessions are offered in the afternoon. One particularly cogent session is about the medical management of vascular disease.

"It's the position of ISET that interventional radiologists should be able to provide longitudinal care of patients with peripheral vascular disease, including those who will not undergo an invasive procedure," Katzen said.

For more information from the Diagnostic Imaging archives:

Biliary stent undergoes study for PVD applications

Minimally invasive PVD treatment lowers amputation rates

Vessel analysis programs fall short in carotid measurements

Carotid stenting offers safe option in the elderly