Coronary CTO Management Strategies

Dr. AK does his best to treat patients on the basis of appositeness of the procedure and not technical intricacy. He strongly thinks that the focus is on the interventional cardiologist to be reliably trained so that the right patients (irrespective of the intricacy of the procedure) could be treated, and not only the ones the cardiologist is able to do due to his/her limited competences. This central philosophy has allowed Dr. AK to not just be a distinguished operator but also train thousands of cardiologists worldwide in intricate coronary interventions, such as chronic total occlusion PCI (believed to be the most intricate angioplasty process), over the past six years. He has carried out several extremely intricate procedures in Asia and the United States with great success and a flawless safety record. Furthermore, he has been trained in structural interventions and peripheral angioplasties at the Cleveland Clinic. After completing his MBBS from Madras Medical College in India, he became a part of several renowned institutes like the Geisinger Medical Center, University of Maryland, and Cleveland Clinic (all in the United States). Moreover, he is a member of the American College of Cardiology and Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions. Today, Arun Kalyanasundaram is a renowned leader in the domain of Chronic Total Occlusion Interventions in the United States and rest of the world. He has served in many leadership roles such as Chief of Cardiology and Cath Lab Director at Highline Medical Centre and Head of the CTO PCI programme at Swedish Medical Centre (both in the United States). He acts as a consultant to many firms in the domain of CTOs and is one of the most popular proctors for teaching this process in the United States and globally. Apart from holding an academic position at the University of Washington, Seattle, he has also been a full-time proctor for CTOs in Asia Pacific and has assisted in propagating the “Hybrid CTO” methodology. He also has several publications in the domain and has carried out chaired sessions and live cases. He is a revered speaker in this domain. Currently, he is the chief of Cardiology at Chennai’s Promed Hospital. He is also an Honorary Director, Interventional Cardiology at Fortis Escorts Heart Institute (New Delhi), and the Head of the CTO PCI program as well, which is the first of its kind in the country. He has established the CHIP-CTO INDIA [COMPLEX HIGH RISK INDICATED PATIENTS (CHIP) – CHRONIC TOTAL OCCLUSION (CTO)] conference, along with some other leaders in interventional cardiology in India, to teach cardiologists how to tackle intricate coronary interventions, which are high-risk and chronic total occlusions.

Dr. Shen has been engaged in cardiovascular disease for 20 years, focusing on the diagnosis and treatment of coronary heart disease, hypertension and heart failure. He is especially good at the treatment of critical cardiovascular disease. Till now Dr. Shen has performed more than 2000 cases of cardiovascular interventional procedures independently, including acute myocardial infarction, left main lesion, chronic total occlusion, bifurcation lesions, calcified lesions and lesions of bridge vessles. He has presided over 5 studies of the National Natural Science Foundation and published more than 20 SCI papers with the first or correspondent authors. At present, his research mainly focuses on the role of monocytes in myocardial repair after myocardial infarction and the study of myocardial regeneration after myocardial infarction.

Dr. Gao Dengfeng is a young member of the local disease branch of the Chinese Medical Association, a young member of the diagnostics branch of the National Higher Education Commission, a young member of the cardiovascular Professional Committee of the Shaanxi Medical Association, a member of the hypertension branch of the Shaanxi Medical Association, and a member of the Standing Committee of the Xi'an society of internal medicine. He studied at Washington University in St. Louis. He is good at the diagnosis and treatment of acute and critical cardiovascular diseases and coronary intervention. In recent years, he has published 23 SCI papers and participated in the compilation of one English monograph. He has won the first and second prizes of science and technology of Shaanxi Province, the excellent natural science paper award of Shaanxi Province and the "Great Wall young doctor Award", and has undertaken 3 National Natural Science Foundation projects and 3 provincial and ministerial level scientific research projects.

Dr Justin Davies is founder and CEO of Wondr Medical, inventor of iFR, and clinical academic and consultant interventional cardiologist at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London.

Dr. Muhammad Munawar is interventional cardiologist, Chairman of Medical Committee of Binawaluya Cardiac Center Hospital, Jakarta, Indonesia and a senior lecturer at School of Medicine, University of Indonesia, University of Gadjahmada, University of Padjadjaran, and University of Samratulangie, Indonesia. Dr. Munawar has been very active in national/international professional societies and its scientific meetings over the last 20 years. He has participated over 100 publications, also is medical journal editor in the major scientific journals.