Welcome to the 8th International Conference on Pediatric Mechanical Circulatory Support Systems & Pediatric Cardiopulmonary Perfusion

Abstract

The 8th International Conference on Pediatric Mechanical Circulatory Support Systems & Pediatric Cardiopulmonary Perfusion will be held at the Galatasaray University, Istanbul, Turkey, June 13–16, 2012. Atif Akcevin, MD, Chief of Cardiovascular Surgery at the American Hospital in Istanbul, will be the Local Conference Chair. The scientific cochairs of this unique event will be Tijen AlkanBozkaya, MD, Turkey; Ihsan Bakir, MD, Turkey; Yves Durandy, MD, France; Huriyet Ersayin-Kantas, FCCP, UK; Colleen E. Gruenwald, PhD, Canada; Giovanni Battista Luciani, MD, Italy; John L. Myers, MD, USA; David Palanzo, CCP, USA; Linda B. Pauliks, MD, MPH, USA; Chitra Ravishankar, MD, USA; Eugen Sandica, MD, Germany; Shunji Sano, MD, PhD, Japan; Kyung Sun, MD, PhD, MBA, Korea; Riza Turkoz, MD, Turkey; and Bonnie Weaver, RN, CCRN, USA. This year, we were fortunate enough to organize our event at the historic Galatasaray University and its magnificent facilities located in Istanbul which is the only city in the world built on two continents, Asia and Europe. The university was first established in 1481 and was called the Galata Palace (“Galata Saray”) as an “Enderun-u Humayunu” (Galata Palace Imperial School). All of the magnificent past of this university can be found at the following link: http://gsu.edu.tr/en/universite/tarihce. We hope that all of the participants will enjoy the event in this historic setting and incredible view of the Bosphorus. As soon as the registration was opened, it was a pleasure to see participants immediately registering for the 8th event from locations as far as New Zealand. This year’s meeting will commence with registration on Wednesday, June 13, 2012. Plenary sessions, mini-symposiums, and regular slide and poster presentations will start on Thursday morning, June 14, and continue through 5 pm on Saturday, June 16th. This year’s participants will also have the distinct pleasure of welcoming Professor Emeritus,William S. Pierce, MD, from Penn State Hershey College of Medicine, as the key note lecturer. His lecture is entitled “A 40-Year Odyssey in Mechanical Circulatory Support.” The topic of the first plenary session will be “Managing the Single Ventricle Patient From Fetus to Definite Treatment,” followed by a key note lecture.The second plenary panel will focus on “Pediatric Mechanical Circulatory Support Devices and Outcomes” including a special lecture entitled “Pediatric MCS and Pediatric Heart Transplantation in Japan” by Shunji Sano, MD. The first day’s scientific program will end with a mini-symposium entitled “Bioengineering Approaches in Pediatric Cardiovascular Medicine.” After the end of the scientific program at 5:30 pm, participants are invited to a special gala dinner aboard a ship from 7 pm to 10 pm. This dinner cruise will offer spectacular sightseeing of the Bosphorus as the boat travels between Europe and Asia. The second and third days of the event will also cover the most important neonatal/pediatric cuttingedge topics and all new results on extracorporeal life support systems including a multidisciplinary team approach to solve the complex problems in neonatal and pediatric cardiac surgery, cardiopulmonary perfusion, myocardial protection, neonatal and pediatric anesthesia, neuromonitoring, and pediatric MCS and cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) around the globe. In addition, there will be dozens of slide and poster presentations from young investigators. The last day of the event will bring several wet labs including neuromonitoring, near-infrared spectroscopy, extracorporeal life support (ECLS) circuits, ventricular assist devices, ultrafiltration, pulsatile perfusion, neonatal/pediatric CPB circuit—step-bystep circuit setup, and neonatal/pediatric oxygenators with integrated arterial filters. These wet labs doi:10.1111/j.1525-1594.2012.01450.x bs_bs_banner