3rd Global Summit on Heart Diseases
Bangkok, Thailand, is the home of the 3rd Global Summit on Heart Diseases starting today. The theme of this year’s conference is Challenges of growing heart diseases and advances in management which is a relevant topic for the attending cardiologists, surgeons, students, affiliates and researchers.
The comprehensive scientific programme includes sessions such as ‘The aptamer BC 007 for in vivo neutralisation of pathogenetic autoantibodies directed against G-protein coupled receptors present in patients with cardiomyopathy: Steps to a new treatment option’, Integrated approach to comprehensive cardiovascular disease management’, ‘Chloride current in mammalian’, ‘Acute total occlusion of the left main: Clinical profiles and outcomes’ and ‘Correlation of serum ferritin level with left ventricular dysfunction in beta thalassemia major patients with increased transfusion dependence’. The full conference schedule is available to download.
During the last few decades, improvement in the treatment of heart failure has improved survival and decreased hospitalisation rate. Despite this, its prognosis is still fairly poor: it was recently reported that a European patient population hospitalised for heart failure had a 1-year mortality rate of 17%, and 1-year hospitalisation rate of 44% (Maggioni et al., 2013). In Western countries heart failure is the number one cause of hospitalisations in people over the age of 65 years. It is estimated that heart failure accounts for about 6.5 million days in hospital per year in the USA.
Various estimations of the prevalence of advanced heart failure have given figures from 6–25% of the total heart failure population, but the true prevalence of advanced heart failure remains uncertain (Nohria et al., 2002). It can be assumed that in the coming years the number of patients classified as having advanced heart failure will increase. This is the consequence of an ageing population and improved survival due to compliance with current chronic heart failure medications (Fruhwald et al., 2016).
Learning Zones
The Learning Zones are an educational resource for healthcare professionals that provide medical information on the epidemiology, pathophysiology and burden of disease, as well as diagnostic techniques and treatment regimens.
