By Dave Fornell, DAIC Editor
The Cardiovascular Research Foundation’s (CRF) Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) 2013 scientific symposium Oct. 27 – Nov. 1 in San Francisco is celebrating its 25th anniversary. The event has grown from a couple hundred attendees its first year to more than 12,000 attendees expected this year. TCT has grown from a small niche meeting focused on angioplasty to an international gathering that encompasses the entire spectrum of emerging catheter-based technologies and techniques.
It is only fitting that a symposium dedicated to cutting-edge interventional technology is celebrating by introducing innovative technology for a more comprehensive and interactive user experience. This year's TCT is providing a tablet computer to all attendees pre-loaded with apps to help navigate more than 2,000 sessions, review abstracts, a contact list of all attendees and a complete show guide. In addition, attendees can use the tablet to view presentation slides and ask questions during sessions through an interactive app.
“The vast majority of people are in the audience are sitting there and learning passively,” said Gregg Stone, M.D., director of Cardiovascular Research and Education?Columbia University Medical Center/New York-Presbyterian Hospital. “Now there will be digitally moderated, digital chat rooms for many of the sessions. Attendees can also use the tablets to search by topic or keywords for navigating all of the sessions, including abstracts and poster presentations. Hopefully it will be something really, really different than anything attendees have seen at conferences before.”
TCT is one of the key shows where late-breaking interventional cardiology trial data is released, and this year includes some very interesting data that offer potential changes in the standard of care. This year Stone said there were 131 applications received for late-breaking sessions, of which nine were picked for formal presentations and 11 will be first reports from investigative trials. Among some of the late-breakers Stone is will be paying close attention to include:
• COREVALVE EXTREME RISK: A Prospective Registry Study of Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement with a Self-Expanding Transcatheter Heart Valve in Patients with Severe Aortic Stenosis
• SAFE-PCI: A Prospective, Registry-Based Randomized Trial of Radial Versus Femoral Vascular Access in Women Undergoing Diagnostic Cardiac Catheterization and PCI
• EUROMAX: A Prospective, Randomized Trial of Ambulance Initiation of Bivalirudin Versus Heparin ± Glycoprotein IIb/IIIa Inhibitors in Patients with STEMI Undergoing Primary PCI
• OPTIMIZE: A Prospective, Randomized Trial of 3 Months Versus 12 Months of Dual Antiplatelet Therapy After PCI
• LEVANT 2: A Prospective, Randomized Trial of a Paclitaxel Coated Balloon Versus Standard Balloon Angioplasty in Diseased Femoropopliteal Arteries
• TRYTON: A Prospective, Randomized Trial of a Dedicated Sidebranch Stent Versus a Provisional Stent Strategy in True Coronary Bifurcation Lesions A complete list of late-breaking sessions.
A complete list of late-breaking sessions.
For Information about TCT 2013, visit www.tctconference.com
The stories below highlight some of the hot topics and new technologies that will be highlighted at this year’s TCT.
December 20, 2023 
