BIFURCATIONS AND CALCIFIC STENOSES: IMPROVING YOUR SKILLSET AND TOOLBOX

Angela McInerney is an Interventional Cardiologist at University Hospital Galway, Ireland. Following completion of her basic cardiology training in Ireland she was awarded the Brian McGovern Travelling Fellowship grant from the Irish Board for Cardiology Training in 2018 which allowed her to start her interventional fellowship in Hospital Clínico San Carlos, Madrid, Spain. Following two years of coronary training including complex PCI, she was awarded an European Society of Cardiology Fellowship Training Grant and completed a further year of structural intervention also in Clínico San Carlos, Madrid. Her specialist interests are in intracoronary imaging, intracoronary physiology, calcium modification techniques and complex PCI. She has been keenly involved in various research projects pertaining to intracoronary physiology and intravascular imaging having authored and co-authored a number of research articles as well as review articles and book chapters on these topics. During her fellowship she also regularly partook in the preparation and delivery of educational courses in Clínico San Carlos and values the educational aspect of her role as a Consultant Interventional Cardiologist.

Dr Dejan Milasinovic is an interventional cardiologist at the Department of Cardiology, Clinical Center of Serbia. He is also an Assistant Professor at Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade. His main research interests focus in the fields of the invasive treatment of acute coronary syndromes and complex coronary interventions, with an emphasis on bifurcation PCI and intracoronary guidance. In 2016, Dr Milasinovic received the EuroPCR 2016 Best Abstract award, for a work on the timing of invasive coronary intervention in patients with non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction. He is a member of European Association of Percutaneous Cardiovascular Interventions (EAPCI) and has served as program committee member of the annual EuroPCR conference. Dr Milasinovic also serves on the editorial boards of EuroIntervention (editorial consultant) and PCRonline and is the Chair of the EAPCI Young committee.

Dr Justin Davies is a honorary 
interventional cardiologist at Hammersmith Hospital, Imperial College NHS Trust, London. After training at Imperial College, he won a prestigious BHF research fellowship to study arterial haemodynamics. Since then he has continued to
work on the development of mathematical algorithms to aid understanding of large artery physiology and to develop new tools to assess arterial disease. The holder of several patents,
he has published widely in the field of hypertension, coronary and large artery physiology and is the winner of many national and international awards. He has several international collaborations, and is the developer of iFR and the co-principal investigator of the ADVISE studies, the DEFINE-FLAIR, ORBITA and DEFINE-PCI studies. Justin also has an interest in renal denervation, and has lead the first-in-man studies to evaluate the safety of this technique to patients with chronic systolic heart failure (REACH studies).

Prof Maciej Lesiak is Head of the 1st Department of Cardiology in Poznan Medical University and a cardiology consultant in Greater Poland province. He obtained medical diploma at the Medical Academy in Poznan (currently the Medical University) and at this university he gained further academic degrees and promotions. He received his doctorate in 1995 defending the work entitled Structure of the sinus node in healthy persons and patients with supraventricular rhythm disorders. His specialization is internal diseases and cardiology.In 2001, he was a member of the team of Poznan cardiologists who prepared the first program for the invasive treatment of acute myocardial infarction in Greater Poland province. In 2007, he became Associate Professor based on the assessment of scientific achievements and dissertation titled “Primary coronary angioplasty in the treatment of acute phase of myocardial infarction. Early and long-term observation of 988 consecutive patients treated as part of the Greater Poland Province Program”. Prof Lesiak became a Professor of medical sciences in 2016. Prof Lesiak has been a member of the Board of the Working Group for Invasive Cardiology of The Polish Cardiac Society since 2001, and its president in years 2009 - 2011; Member of European Society of Cardiology since 2002, and a EuroPCR Program Committee Member since 2009. He is also an associate editor of the Polish Heart Journal. Prof Lesiak has published over 140 original publications in magazines such as European Heart Journal, JACC, JACC Cardiovascular Interventions, American Heart Journal, etc.

Ranil de Silva is Senior Lecturer in Clinical Cardiology at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London and Consultant Interventional Cardiologist at the Royal Brompton Hospital, London, UK. He obtained his medical degree from King’s College London and undertook his PhD in PET imaging at the MRC Cyclotron Unit under Attilio Maseri. His post-doctoral research was at the National Institutes of Health, USA working on MRI guided endovascular intervention and cardiovascular regenerative medicine. His research focuses on imaging to guide the diagnosis, risk stratification and evaluation of novel therapies for patients with acute and chronic coronary syndromes. He leads translational interdisciplinary research programs on coronary atherosclerotic plaque biomechanics evaluated by fluid-structure interaction modelling, post-myocardial infarction left ventricular remodelling using diffusion tensor cardiovascular magnetic resonance, and coronary sinus reducer for treating coronary microvascular dysfunction. He has published more than 100 peer reviewed articles, including Circulation, European Heart Journal, JACC, Nature journals, Lancet and NEJM. He has an h-index 43. He leads the Specialist Angina Service at the Royal Brompton Hospital, which is a nationally recognised service for patients with refractory angina. He is an interventional cardiologist undertaking complex interventional procedures, coronary sinus reduction, LV support and the full range of intracoronary imaging and physiology techniques. He also has an interest in resistant hypertension and has experience in renal denervation.

Professor Robert Julian Gil, a graduate of the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin (September 1984) has been employed since November 2001 in Clinical Hospital of the Ministry of the Interior and Administration (since January 2023 National Medical Institute of the Ministry of the Interior and Administration in Warsaw. Currently (since June 2022) as the head of the Cardiology Department created as a result of the merger of two previously operating cardiological clinics. In 1997-2004 he was the Chair of the Invasive Cardiology Section (Working Group) of the Polish Cardiac Society, and a member of its Board (as a past president) for the next 3 years. He served as the member of the Polish Cardiac Society Board for two cadencies (2015-2019). In the elections in 2021, he was appointed president-elect of the Polish Cardiac Society. His achievements include: over 240 publications in peer-reviewed journals (total IF above 500), co-authorship of over 30 chapters of books on interventional cardiology and more than 300 convention reports presented at prestigious international conventions on clinical electrophysiology and invasive cardiology. He initiated annual National Workshops on Interventional Cardiology, which after 5 editions in Szczecin was moved to Warsaw as the Warsaw Course on Cardiovascular Interventions (www.wcci.pl). Their 27th edition was held in April 2023. He is a member of Editorial Boards of most prestigious cardiological journals as: Polish Heart Journal, Cardiology Journal, Advances in Interventional Cardiology. Since 2009 he has regularly reviewed papers sent by to the American Journal of Cardiology, Journal of American College of Cardiology, EuroIntervention, Journal of Interventional Cardiology and Circulation. In June 2000 he was awarded a prestigious title of the Fellow of European Society of Cardiology. Since 2007 he has been a member of the exclusive European Bifurcation Club handling the questions of diagnostics and treatment of bifurcation lesions. Since 2001 he has been regularly invited to actively participate (Faculty member) in such prestigious Congresses and Workshops of Interventional Cardiology as: EuroPCR, TCT, TCT Russia, ICI in Tel Aviv, CBS in Nanjing, European Bifurcation Club meetings and many national congresses

Dr Roberto Scarsini obtained his medical degree at University of Verona Medical School (Italy) and completed his training in general Cardiology in 2018. He obtained the PhD in Cardiovascular Science at Verona University working on the clinical implications of coronary microvascular dysfunction in patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction. He received his training in Interventional Cardiology at the John Radcliffe Oxford University Hospital (Oxford, UK), working with Professor Adrian Banning. He received a research grant from the European Association of Percutaneous Cardiovascular Intervention (EAPCI) for a research fellowship that he did at the Oxford Heart Centre (Oxford University, Oxford, UK). He is currently working as Consultant in Cardiology and Interventional cardiologist at Verona University Hospital (Verona, Italy) where he leads the research program in Coronary pathophysiology and interventions. He has recently been awarded with the Young investigator award in Coronary Pathophysiology and Microcirculation of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).

Dr Roberto Spina is an Interventional Cardiologist trained in Australia and the USA and is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. He specialises in transcatheter structural heart interventions, having undertaken a Structural Heart Intervention Advanced Fellowship at the New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center in New York, USA, and complex coronary intervention. He strongly believes in the routine use of intravascular imaging in performing percutaneous coronary intervention.

Dr Tim Schäufele is an interventional cardiologist with special interest in CTOs, coronary physiology and calcified lesions. He is owner of Kardiologie-Innenstad Bern private practice and Interventional Cardiologist at Lindenhofspital Bern. Prior to this, he served as Head of Cathlab and Interventional Cardiology at Robert-Bosch-Krankenhaus Stuttgart, after serving as a Research Fellow in Cardiac Magnetic Imaging at the Department of Cardiology University Heidelberg. Dr Schäufele is a Co-Founding Member of Transradial Workingroup German Cardiac Society, a Board Member of the Interventional Working Group of the German Cardiac Society, and a Full Member EuroCTO Club.