Decision-making and problem solving in complex PCI: interactive case-based learning #2

Prof Farrel Hellig is the Cathlab Director at Sunninghill Hospital (Johannesburg, South Africa) and Hon Professor of Cardiology at the University of Cape Town. He is involved in both the coronary and structural cardiac fields as well as peripheral interventions. Sunninghill Hospital is a referral centre for complex medical problems. In the coronary arena, his main interests are: complex multivessel disease, left main intervention, management of coronary calcification and chronic total occlusion. He has been active in the field of coronary physiology and imaging. In the structural space, his interests are in valvular disease, septal closure, paravalvular leak closure, LAA occlusion and GUCH intervention. He is active in research, including numerous FIH studies. He has many educational roles, including: director of Africa PCR, numerous presentations and live case transmissions to multiple international congresses and is a proctor for many different procedures. He has numerous publications, editorials and book chapters, and is on the editorial board of Eurointervention journal. In his spare time he plays saxophone, collects wine, cooks, and builds and flies model aircraft.

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 90) 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 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).

Dr Nieves Gonzalo is Consultant Interventional Cardiologist at the Interventional Cardiology Department at Clinico San Carlos University Hospital in Madrid. She obtained her Specialist Certification in Cardiology after training at Clinico San Carlos University Hospital in Madrid. Subsequently, she underwent a research fellowship at Thoraxcenter, Erasmus University Rotterdam (The Netherlands) under the supervision of Professor Patrick Serruys, focused mainly in intracoronary imaging and bioabsorbable stents. In 2010 she obtained her PhD with the thesis “Optical coherence tomography for the assessment of coronary atherosclerosis and vessel response after stent implantation”. Her track record includes over 170 articles indexed in PubMed, as well as book chapters in Interventional Cardiology textbooks. Recent research projects as principal investigator includes a study about the assessment of neoatherosclerosis and its clinical impact in patients with restenosis (RIBS IV and V OCT substudy) and research regarding vessel injury and healing evaluation with different stent platforms evaluated with OCT (VISTA study). Dr Gonzalo is a dedicated educationalist with involvement in many areas of complex PCI, serving currently as Deputy Editor for Eurointervention and Committee Member of EuroPCR.

Dr. Pablo Salinas is Interventional Cardiologist at Hospital Clínico San Carlos in Madrid, Spain. He studied Medicine at Universidad Complutense in Madrid, Spain and was trained in Cardiology and Interventional Cardiology at Hospital La Paz in Madrid, Spain. In 2015 he obtained his PhD degree (cum laude) at the Universidad Autonoma in Madrid. He has developed his professional career in the field of interventional cardiology for over 10 years, and is a skilled operator in complex coronary intervention, chronic occlusions, and stroke prevention therapies such as foramen ovale closure and appendage closure, with regular participation in educational events and live cases. During his research career he has 80+ PubMed indexed publications and is currently the PI of three multicenter studies SUGAR Trial (NCT03321032), REVASEC Registry (NCT03349385), and TROMPA Registry. Also he has been researcher in several investigator initiated, competitive funding research (PI16 / 00840, PIE16 / 00043, PI15 / 00742).