Angioplasty Summit is an international conference to converge and educate the fast changing academic versatility of heart diseases, especially, ischemic heart disease, including treatment methods. Ischemic heart disease is a dreadful disease, causing the most deaths in US. The incidence of this disease started to decrease in the early 1990's after significant researches in many countries for the past 50 years. Researches and investment should be made for the treatment of heart diseases, causing the third most number of deaths in Korea.
The international Angioplasty Summit conference is unique in that all physicians performing procedures and participants of the conference discuss freely and converge their opinions during the conference period via satellite broadcasting. Throughout the world, US, France and Singapore and Japan in the Asian Pacific region host annual conferences. This demonstration-oriented conference is the only conference in Korea.
Angioplasty Summit made a significant advancement in quality and quantity for the past 10 years as a leading international conference in the Asia and Pacific region, drawing about 1,000 participants each year. Based on close ties with China and Japan, many doctors from China and Japan have supported the conference.

Past and Present

Balloon angioplasty first performed in 1979 was a revolution in treatment of coronary artery diseases. Percutaneous intervention has secured its place as a very effective method of treatment for the past 20 years in selective patients, alternative to surgery. After Professor Seung Yun Cho at Severance Hospital under College of Medicine, Yonsei University, first performed balloon angioplasty in 1983 in a patient with coronary heart disease in Korea, this procedure had often been applied clinically for the past 20 years. However, most serious problem related with balloon angioplasty is the possibility of acute occlusion immediately following the procedure and restenosis in more than 40% of the patients who underwent this procedure. In order to resolve these issues, researchers spent huge amounts of research funds and placed endless efforts. The fruition was coronary stenting first attempted in 1994, the method that could reduce restenosis by more than 30%. With its effectiveness proven, this procedure made another landmark as a treatment procedure.

The first Angioplasty Summit was held in 1995, the drastic changing academic time. This conference became an important place where outstanding scholars from all over the world gather to converge the versatility of fast changing treatment methods and to share new methods applied in actually clinical settings by performing different procedures in patients and discussing their opinions. At this time, relatively large international conferences demonstrating percutaneous intervention were held in Singapore and Japan. Thus, an international conference could be held also in Korea due to active support and efforts of many doctors.

Angioplasty Summit has become an international conference demonstrating percutaneous coronary intervention procedures starting in 1997 with the participation by Dr. Gary S. Mintz at Washington Hospital Center. With the popularization of stenting, ultrasonography could be performed within the coronary artery, leading the change in functional concept of stenting, other than the stent function of anatomical correction in coronary artery diseases. As a world leader in the field of angioplasty, Dr. Mintz evaluated all procedures during this conference and has helped in boosting academic level of the conference.

A small satellite symposium titled, “Beyond Angiography”, was held in 1998 to evaluate the functional aspect of percutaneous coronary intervention for intensive discussion of adjunctive procedures such as intracoronary artery ultrasonography, intracoronary artery pressure measurement, and measurement of resistance in peripheral blood vessels. This symposium had contributed in overall understanding of this field of percutaneous coronary intervention and clinical application.

Another satellite symposium “Intracoronary Brachytherapy” was established in 1999, where the participants obtained an understanding on research results in Korea and abroad in intracoronary radiotherapy and discussed on clinical application and individualized treatment. With the popularization of stenting in coronary artery disease, another problem that physicians encountered is in-stent restenosis so that the problem arose in the fact that restenosis could not be prevented. The method proven to be effective in the treatment of in-stent restenosis is intracoronary radiotherapy.

Actual percutaneous intervention procedures were broadcasted via satellite in Korea for the first time for 4 h in Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT), which is the biggest percutaneous intervention conference in US, a good opportunity for Angioplasty Summit to be evaluated internationally. This broadcasting was an opportunity for Angioplasty Summit to accepted internationally academically and in quality for the past 5 years.

With the development of percutaneous intervention procedures, cardiologists showed wider interest in these procedures. By 2001, these procedures could cover the carotid artery, renal artery and aortic diseases. Along with the international trend according to gradual change, “Peripheral Intervention Session” was started as a new area in Angioplasty Summit. From the educational aspect, Angioplasty Summit is accepted internationally by broadcasting actual procedures in real time during Singapore Live in January and Paris Course on Revascularization (PCR), which is the largest and oldest percutaneous conference in Europe, in May.

The “Drug Eluting Stent” symposium was established in 2002 as an important part of Angioplasty Summit. After the introduction of balloon angioplasty in 1979, the history of percutaneous coronary intervention has been, in short, a fight with restenosis after procedure. Conquering restenosis after percutaneous intervention is the dream of all cardiologists. This dream came true with the use of drug eluting stenting with good clinical result with the rate of restenosis less than 10%. We could understand drug-eluting stenting and learn about clinical application through intensive discussion of world-renowned cardiologists. Angioplasty Summit broadcasted percutaneous procedures during Oriental Endovascular Therapy (OET) held in Sanghai, China, in June and Complex Catheter Therapeutics (CCT) held in Japan in November. By broadcasting live via satellite throughout the world including US, France, Singapore, China and Japan, Angioplasty Summit has grown to be a conference offering excellent education programs recognized not only in the Asia Pacific region but also in the world. We are proud to say that we have secured a place in the world as an excellent international conference recognized by others. Not only academic exchange, Angioplasty Summit is also a place where great scholars from the entire world gather together to form and build friendship.

The 8th Angioplasty Summit 2003 in this year is regarded as another new starting point in its organization and contents. In a view of the organization, the science conference was systematically run by the support of the CVRF, and was held under the reduced scale from the international conference to the domestic one due to the international influences by Iraqi War and SARS Epidemic. Although the conference scale was reduced into the domestic science conference, the participants were close to 1,000 with their sincere supports and interests. Consequent to this, a drug eluting stent which lots of interests have been concentrated on was introduced into a clinic, and it is not too much to say that the introduction of the drug eluting stent into the clinic changed a trend of the Intervention. Particularly, this conference was broadcasted in real-time through the webcast for the doctors inside and outside the country. Once, the connectors were over 1,000 at a time and the server was downed for a moment because of floods of connectors. In this year, we had live case satellite transmission from Shiga Medical Center in Japan and Scripps Memorial Hospital in America. Under difficult circumstances, Drs. Gary S. Mintz, Alan C. Yeung and Sigeru Saito actively took part in the conference.

The 9th Angioplasty Summit 2004 was a great successful conference with 1500 attendees’ interests and supports as well as the especial contributions of 170 faculty members.
In 2004, there were several changed and trials had been made.
The venue had been extended to the Walkerhill Hotel Convention Center and we called the abstract submissions for the first time which had been published in special supplement of the International Journal of Cardiovascular Intervention.
The meeting featured exclusive live case satellite transmissions from the Lenox Hill Heart and Vascular Institute of New York, USA, the CCT group in Japan and the Asan Medical Center and two domestic university hospitals (Chonnam National Hospital, Ajou University Hospital).
From 2004, the meeting had been co-sponsored by CRF, USA and Lenox Hill Heart and Vascular Institute of New York, USA..

Angioplasty Summit will be newly transformed for 2005 as Angioplasty Summit-TCT Asia Pacific.
It will be co-organized by the TCT group with exclusive TCT sessions moderated by Drs Martin B. Leon and Gregg W. Stone. There will be live demonstrations relayed from Columbia University, USA, Columbus Hospital, Italy, Toyohashi Heart Center, Japan, Fu Wai Hospital Center, China and 2 domestic sites with from Asan Medical Center.
Through this collaboration, we hope to make this meeting a platform for the exchange of ideas between Western and Asia Pacific colleagues regarding state-of-the art interventional vascular therapy.

Future

This international conference held in Seoul, Korea offers many advantages. Regionally, Seoul is located at the center of Northern Asia and could form a strong tie with Japan and China. Not only the quality, it has already been accepted as a leading conference in the Asian Pacific region. The level of research related with cardiovascular diseases in Korea would be developed to that of the world through exchanges with countries in Asia Pacific, America and Europe with this international conference.

Angioplasty Summit is to host regular practical workshop for interventional cardiologists as an extramural program inviting young cardiologists from Korea and Asian Pacific countries. Participants could obtain hands-on-experiences centering on procedures, which are the most important issue in the diagnosis and treatment of patients with heart diseases. We are to realize live case demonstration through 2-way communication, conduct case reviews and free discussion with specialists, provide lectures and opinions by people invited from outside the conference, make participants to understand the given topic sufficiently by panel discussion and let participants to obtain actual hands-on experience so that this workshop would help in patient diagnosis in actual clinical settings.

Angioplasty Summit is the major program of CardioVascular Research Foundation (CVRF) and could become the best international conference in the Asian Pacific region within a few years.