Organizers of the 2010 ACC Annual Scientific Session, March 13–16 in Atlanta, recently highlighted some of the changes to this year’s program. On Saturday, March 13, the ACC is hosting the CardioSmart.com Atlanta event, which is a public heart health clinic. Patients will be screened for blood pressure, diabetes weight and will be provided general information on how to stay healthy.

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a precursor to a number of serious cardiovascular complications, including stroke. The increasing prevalence and cost of treating these cardiovascular complications has prompted the medical community to take a closer look at treating AF, and as a result, device treatment of the condition is expanding by leaps and bounds.

Since the introduction of cardiac ultrasound, investigators have sought to quantify cardiac function in three dimensions. The recent development of a new technology called 3D wall motion tracking (3DWMT), which displays quantitative echo data from 3D ultrasound data sets, has tremendous potential to more accurately evaluate ventricular function in a wide variety of cardiovascular diseases.