The 54th Annual Meeting of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons is going on in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida at the Broward County Convention Center January 27-31, 2018.

This annual meeting is one of the largest academic meetings in the United States for Heart Surgeons and Thoracic Surgeons.  It is held each January and the location of the meeting is different each year.

This year, there are many interesting presentations related to thoracic aortic aneurysms, thoracic aortic dissections, acute type A aortic dissection management and TEVAR (Thoracic Endovascular Aneurysm Repair).

In addition to the Annual Meeting content (presentations, lectures, etc), there are educational satellite symposia available each day of the meeting, where valuable information is also presented.  The Annual Meeting content usually goes from 7am to 5pm in the main convention hall.

The satellite symposia take place before the meeting starts in the early morning or after the meeting shuts down for the day so as not to conflict with the program of the main meeting.

These educational programs allow a deeper dive into more specific topics and Heart Surgeons to focus on specific topics of interest.

This year, Bolton Medical, Vascutek and Terumo are hosting an exciting Dinner Symposium for Heart Surgeons that are interested in learning more about advanced TEVAR and Thoracic Endograft Technologies and Therapies. [Bolton was recently acquired by Terumo.]

The Symposium is entitled: “Full Treatment Range On Thoracic Disease Management”.

The faculty participating in this program is quite distinguished faculty (including yours truly).  All of the faculty members have made lasting contributions to the field of aortic surgery and TEVAR therapies.

We are constantly working to advance patient outcomes for aortic aneurysms and aortic dissections and also develop new technologies in association with medical device companies to enable patients to be successfully treated for their aortic diseases.

This symposium will discussing new technologies and studies dealing with endovascular repair of the ascending aorta, open aortic arch repair in combination with an aortic stent-graft, and new data from a recently completed clinical research trial with a new thoracic aortic stent-graft.

It is an honor to be able to participate in an advanced educational symposium which looks at where the field of TEVAR, aortic stent-grafting and hybrid aortic procedures is going.