Tips and Tricks in CTO PCI part 1

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 Rasha Al-Lamee is an Interventional Cardiology Consultant at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust in London, UK. Dr Al-Lamee’s research interests are complex coronary intervention, coronary physiology and invasive intravascular assessment. She designed, conducted and led the ORBITA trial and is the lead author of the primary publication in The Lancet. At Imperial College, she is actively involved in the development and recruitment for a number of multi-centre clinical trials. Dr Al- Lamee has over 40 peer-reviewed publications and has presented at international Cardiology conferences worldwide throughout her clinical career. She studied at the University of Oxford and University College London. She went onto complete her training as a junior doctor on the Barts and the London Medical rotation before being appointed as a Specialist Registrar on the North West London Cardiology rotation in 2006. Dr Al-Lamee has twelve years of Cardiology experience and completed three years of Interventional Fellowship training at Hammersmith Hospital in London. She also spent a year training as an Interventional Fellow under the supervision of Professor Antonio Colombo in Milan. She completed specialist training in Cardiology in 2013.

Dr Roberto Garbo is the Director of the CTO PCI, CHIP, and complex PCI program in Maria Pia Hospital GVM Care & Research, Turin, Italy. He was Head of the Cath Lab at San Giovanni Bosco Hospital from 2005-2020. He is the Director of the International Turin CTO & CHIP Live Congress. He has been Board member of EuroCTO Club from 2017 to 2023. Dr Garbo is one of the greatest experts in the world in the field of IVUS guided CTO in both antegrade and retrograde approach, with more than 2400 CTO of which more than 1100 retrograde CTO PCI. He performed as Live first operator more than 100 CTO PCI live cases during international CTO Congress . He is a Proctor for CTO PCI programs in Italy, Europe (France, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Romania, Czech republic, Russia) and Middle East (Egypt, Saudi Arabia), as well as an expert and proctor for Rotational Atherectomy in very calcified lesion (more than 1000 cases as first operator). He is also involved in many scientific projects with more than 130 papers in the field of CTO and Complex PCI.