Block 4: Decoding PCI complications: how to prevent, understand and manage them

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. Giulia Nardi is an Interventional Cardiology Fellow at Hospital Clinico San Carlos (Madrid). She graduated in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Florence (Italy), where she also completed her Cardiology training. She has a special interest in complex PCI, including CTOs and calcified lesions, and has hands-on experience in intravascular imaging and physiology. She is passionate about education and training, with active participation in international conferences and courses such as EuroPCR, GISE, JIM GISE, and Renew PCI, among others.

Professor Jacek Legutko is an interventional cardiologist with over 25 years of experience in the field. His main research interest is focused on primary PCI in acute myocardial infarction, intravascular imaging and physiology lesion assessment in the cathlab, as well as complex percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI). He has performed a series of studies in those areas and has participated in many clinical trials. Professor Legutko is a Course Director at the New Frontiers in Interventional Cardiology (NFIC), an international congress organized annually in Krakow, Poland since 1999. He has also served as a Faculty member, live case operator and facilitator for several interventional cardiology meetings including EuroPCR, PCR Africa, TCT, C3, CardioEgypt, and WCCI. Professor Legutko received several professional awards, including prestigious “Andreas Award” granted for his personal impute on the development of interventional cardiology in Poland.

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 >700 indexed scientific articles on interventional cardiology, imaging and physiology (h-index 100) 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 Justin Davies is a board member of Monaco Cardio at the Princess Grace Hospital, Monaco, and an interventional cardiologist with over 15 years of experience as a leading educator in the field. His clinical and academic career was established at Hammersmith Hospital, Imperial College London, where he built an international reputation for innovation in cardiovascular medicine. Over the course of his career, he has successfully mentored 15 PhD students, published more than 500 peer-reviewed papers — including landmark studies in the New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet — and holds 20 patents in cardiovascular medicine and technology. He was the co-principal investigator of the DEFINE-FLAIR study, which helped establish iFR (Instantaneous Wave-Free Ratio), a diagnostic technique he invented, as a globally adopted standard in coronary physiology. His work reflects a unique blend of scientific innovation, academic leadership, and clinical excellence. In addition to his research and academic commitments, Justin is CEO of Cerebria AI, where he leads the development of next-generation AI-powered cardiovascular imaging and physiology tools. Under his leadership, Cerebria AI is advancing cutting-edge solutions that integrate artificial intelligence with frontline cardiology to enhance clinical decision-making and patient outcomes. Combining deep clinical expertise with entrepreneurial vision, he continues to guide international ventures through funding, regulatory pathways, and commercialization, while remaining committed to transforming cardiovascular care on a global scale.

Dr Kambis Mashayekhi is Head of the Department of Internal Medicine and Cardiology in Heart Center Lahr in Germany. Dr. Mashayekhi is performing over 350 CTO-PCI’s per year and is an world-renowned CTO and complex PCI specialist. Dr. Mashayekhi is the head of the CTO working group from the German Society of cardiology and the Co-Director of MLCTO and EuroCTO course. He is the new EuroCTO president elect for 2023.

Dr Rasa Ordiené is an experienced interventional cardiologist with a strong educational and professional background. She completed her PhD at the Lithuania University of Health Sciences and specialized in cardiology during her medical residency. Her medical training includes a master's degree in medicine from Kaunas University of Medicine and a postgraduate medical internship at Kaunas 3rd Clinical Hospital. Since 2014, Dr. Ordiené has been working as a cardiologist in the Interventional Cardiology Department at the Hospital of Lithuania University of Health Sciences Kaunas Clinics. She also completed a fellowship in cardiothoracic and echocardiography at Hammersmith Hospital in London in 2014.

Prof Sunao Nakamura is one of the most experienced interventional cardiologist Japan. He have performed more than 25,000 cases of PCI and 10,000 cases of chronic total occlusion (CTO) in his career which is the biggest number in the world. He has a very unique background as a researcher; studying basic molecular science (molecular cell biology) and clinical science in university more than 10 years in his younger days. Then, the encounter with Prof. Shigeru Saito, who is a great leader of interventional cardiologist in Japan made Prof. Nakamura suddenly shift his main field of cardiology to Interventional cardiology due to respect of great works of Prof. Shigeru Saito. After accumulating big number of the PCI cases, following the Prof. Saito’s words, Dr. Nakamura had started to share his experience of PCI in Asian countries from early 30‘s of his age spending half a year in foreign countries. As a result of through these activities over the years, he has built incredibly great relations with many doctors through the experience of PCI cases and many discussions. His motto is that all the patients around the world should be properly saved, so he had generously taught every kind of PCI technique, skill and knowledge to many doctors. He is also fully engaged in the leading edge of clinical activities and researches for many years. During this period, many clinical and basic studies were conducted, keeping the pace of 30 papers published per year. Especially in close relation with Professor Antonio Colombo, Italy, Professor IK Jan, USA, there are many collaborated clinical studies with them. His dream is to make the world's leading heart center where medical research from basic to clinical is conducted collecting Crème de la Crème Doctors in the world.

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.