The annual Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) meeting will be held in Seattle, WA from March 1-6 2007. Interventional radiologists from around the globe will have the opportunity to expand their knowledge and challenge their thinking when they attend a selection of workshops, plenary sessions, symposia and general networking. Interventional News recently spoke to Dr Ziv Haskal, SIR Annual Meeting Chairman, to discuss the highlights of the meeting and what delegates can expect.
The 32nd annual meeting will examine a variety of categories, both existing and new. With an emphasis on existing areas of research such as peripheral arterial disease (PAD), Haskal revealed that there will be plenary sessions focusing on evidence and results for the host of infrainguinal PAD interventions and interventional oncology, a major component of the programme.
"Interventional oncology is a significant part of interventional radiology and will grow much further," he said. "The idea that you can prolong life and palliate cancer and control it by treating it in a single organ using our image guided approaches, is becoming a widespread, validated concept. That is driving interventional oncology. We have potent embolisation and ablation technologies for treating cancers that start or spread through the liver, as well as kidney tumours, and more and more bone and lung tumours. We are going to hear about these things in a variety of forms: in plenary sessions, categorical courses, workshops, and a special six hour symposium uniquely about cancer, where we'll review evidence based for all relevant locoregional treatments as well as adjunctive systemic therapies."
What's new
Also new to SIR, is a series of debates. Controversial issues where evidence at this stage is unclear will be the focus of these debates. Such topics as surgery versus local regional therapy, or fibroid embolisation in the fertile patient are up for discussion. The idea behind this is to promote intensive discussions and thought-provoking issues in order to attain positive solutions and outcomes.
Haskal also explained that the concept of 'Clinical Care' will be a focus point of the meeting and will appear regularly throughout the programme. The importance of clinical care is a recurring issue that has been part of the Society's strategic plan for some time. "This year, where appropriate, many of the lectures will open with a large clinical care focus," said Haskal. The need for more interventional radiologists to have their own private offices is growing, and to address this issue the clinical care concept will provide the necessary tools for physicians to develop or expand practices.
Cosmetic interventional radiology is a new field that specifically looks at 'The Business of Beauty', Haskal explained. An opening six-hour symposium will take place on the first day before the formal programme that will involve 25 lecturers who will examine aspects of cosmetic interventions from establishing practices, to Botox, fillers and liposuction.
"We are already a subspecialty that is seeing these kinds of patients by treating varicose veins and symptoms of venous insufficiency, for example. Because we are already exposed to these diseases, we are well positioned to treat the population who are asking for our help. It is a natural extension. Pre-registration for this category is the highest we've seen."
Another already popular, new inclusion to the meeting, is a six-hour morbidity and mortality symposia. "A lot that can be learned from people's complications and disasters," said Haskal. "This course has more than 500 people pre-registered case presentations and such a large scale morbidity and mortality event has never before been seen at SIR."
Imaging events
This year, many imaging issues will be addressed and a coronary, non-invasive imaging six-hour symposium will take place, which was extremely popular last year. There will also be a teaching course in collaboration with North American Society for Cardiac Imaging that is very well pre-registered, said Haskal.
Plenary sessions will look at the unique imaging dilemmas in interventional radiology, eg. 'Imaging dilemmas: function doesn't follow form'. "Here, we will use anatomical image to try to decide whether our treatments are successful, in actual fact, we want to know how an organ functions not how big or small an artery appears."
Non-vascular sessions
Appearing this year will be sessions and hands-on workshops focusing on muscle, spine and bone areas, specifically looking at not only vertebral body interventions, but also treatment and ablation of painful bony lesions, stabilisation of bones, and pain therapies.
This year, haemodialysis has been moved up to a plenary level session to look at what's new in detail in terms of national trends, best practices, procedures and their relative. There is enough new material, particularly with the new dialysis outcome quality initiative documents and guidelines from the National Kidney Foundation, to bring this up to plenary level.
According to Haskal, many sessions will be aimed directly at young physicians and trainees to develop a career in interventional radiology.
"We have a scholarship programme for fellows, residents and students. We have 'Conference training concierge', where we are debuting the 'E-lounge' (electronic lounge) with electronic posters. This will also be a meeting point for all trainees every day where they'll be directed to specific educational pathways and programmes, so they can network."
A not-to-be-missed session entitled 'SIR Meets Asia',is a premiering event will involve speakers from Far East countries, such as India, Japan, Thailand, Korea, and China. "This session aims to expose the US to the extraordinary range of procedures occurring in Asia, both basic and robust, that may well far exceed what we do."
Dotter Lecture and SIR Awards
Michael Dake, professor and chairman of the department of radiology at the University of Virgina Health System will present the 23rd Annual Dotter Lecture. Selection by the SIR President is based on extraordinary contributions to the field, dedicated service to the Society, and distinguished career achievements in interventional radiology.
Finally, three Gold Medal winners are the recipients of this year's SIR Award. This award is given to a member who has helped ensure the future of interventional radiology by advancing the quality of medicine and patient care. The recipients include Drs Rolf W Günther, Eugene Klatte and Julio Palmaz.
Haskal surmised, "My hope is, this year, as with every Chairman's year, we try to expose people to greater depths of what they know, review what they know and also try to clarify where there is solid evidence rather than dogma and habit based decisions. I hope, through debates and exploration of classes and levels of evidence where appropriate, that we are going to both inspire trainees to new research and perhaps have all of us look at our own practices with a more critical eye than perhaps what we already do."
Date: Feb/2007
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