ULC PCI: AN INDISPENSABLE SKILL IN CONTEMPORARY COMPLEX PCI

Dr Breda Hennessey graduated from the Third Faculty of Medicine in Charles University in Prague. Following this, she returned to Ireland to complete her general medical and higher specialist cardiology training. In 2019, she was awarded the Brian McGovern Scholarship by the Irish Cardiac Society, and this allowed her to commence her subspecialty training in Interventional Cardiology at Hospital Clínico San Carlos in Madrid. She completed a two-year coronary interventional fellowship, with a focus on intracoronary imaging, invasive physiology and ultra-low dose contrast intervention. Following completion of her coronary training, she undertook a further fellowship in structural intervention, also at Hospital Clínico San Carlos. In addition to her clinical work, she has been involved in various research projects pertaining to ultra-low dose contrast PCI, investigating the impact of new technologies in reducing contrast burden in complex PCI . She has authored and co-authored a number of research articles, book chapters and has contributed to the European association of Percutaneous Cardiovascular Interventions textbook. During her time at Hospital Clinico San Carlos, she completed a Masters in Interventional Cardiology and is currently undertaking a PHD at the Complutense University of Madrid with a focus in ultra-low dose contrast PCI. Throughout her fellowship, she regularly took part in the preparation and delivery of educational courses, both at Hospital Clinico San Carlos and in collaboration with other tertiary referral centres and international cardiology societies in Spain, the UK and the UAE.

Dr Giuseppe Colletti is a specialist in interventional cardiology at the Clinique Saint-Joseph in Arlon, Belgium where his focus is on developing and handling the complex PCI program. He did a fellowship in interventional cardiology at Hôpital Jolimont in La Louvrière, focusing on complex coronary lesions treatment with particular regards to calcified lesions, as well as at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Liège – Sart Tilman. He graduated from medical from the University of Palermo on 2010 and he specialized in cardiology at the University of Sassari in 2016. Dr Colletti has been a published author in peer-reviewed journals and is planning on publishing more in the future as he has been increasingly involved in clinical research.

Prof Javier Escaned is Head of Section (Interventional Cardiology Section) at Hospital Clinico San Carlos / Complutense University (Madrid, Spain). He trained in the United Kingdom as Specialist in Cardiology and obtained his PhD in The Netherlands. Author of >600 indexed scientific articles on interventional cardiology, imaging and physiology (h-index 74) and over 30 years of experience as PCI operator, he regularly lectures and performs live cases at major scientific and educational meetings. He is a recipient of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Silver Medal and the Andreas Grüntzig Award for his contributions to the fiedl fo Interventional Cardiology. Main areas of expertise include complex PCI, intracoronary diagnostics and functional coronary angiography. His track record in coronary physiology comprises being investigator on pioneer FFR trials like DEFER (1998), collaborator with Justin Davies in the validation and clinical implementation of iFR, and developer of new tools for the assessment of coronary microcirculation. Editorial roles include Deputy Editor EHJ, Advisory Editor Eurointervention, editor of the textbooks “Coronary Stenosis: Imaging, Structure and Physiology” and “Physiological Assessment of Coronary Stenoses and the Microcirculation". Recent board positions include EAPCI board / Education Committee Chair, ESC WG Coronary Pathophysiology and Microcirculation, EuroCTO Board. Recent trials as Principal Investigator include ADVISE II, DEFINE FLAIR, SYNTAX II, PIONEER IV, Cerebral-Coronary-Connection (C3), DCR4Contrast, INOCA LongCovid and AID ANGIO. Additional interests are philosophy and music.

Dr Richard A. Shlofmitz, MD, FACC is the Chairman of Cardiology at St. Francis Hospital, The Heart Center®, in Roslyn, New York. A pioneer in interventional cardiology, Dr. Shlofmitz has worked to advance the field, with a focus on optimizing outcomes with the development of Precision PCI. He is a founding co-director of the annual Intravascular Imaging and Coronary Physiology Workshop. Performing over 1,000 coronary interventions annually, he has one of the largest volumes of experience in PCI. He has the most clinical experience with orbital atherectomy and OCT world-wide. His clinical research interests focus on optimizing coronary interventions and he serves on multiple scientific advisory boards and clinical trial steering committees to further this mission. Dr Shlofmitz has been one of the largest enrollers for multiple clinical trials, including TWILIGHT, ILUMIEN III, and Onyx, with more than 75 publications in peer-reviewed journals and was first to perform coronary intravascular lithotripsy (IVL) in North America as part of the DISRUPT CAD III trial.

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.