Get Up to Speed on Best Practices in Team-Based Care of Aortic Disease

Aortic disease represents one of the fastest-growing areas in cardiovascular care. Interdisciplinary teamwork is essential for optimal care of aortic disease, and a long-standing CME favorite from Cleveland Clinic is returning this September with a deliberately interdisciplinary approach to updating attendees on patient assessment, diagnosis and management across the lifespan.

The two-day course — Comprehensive, Lifelong, Expeditious (CLE) Care of Aortic Disease — provides an in-depth review and analysis of state-of-the-art practices, presenting discussion and debates around clinical decision-making with expert faculty from Cleveland Clinic and other top multidisciplinary aorta centers across North America.

The dates are Fri.-Sat., Sept. 12-13, at the InterContinental Cleveland on Cleveland Clinic’s Main Campus in Cleveland, Ohio.

Content across the continuum

The full continuum of aortic disease is covered, with core clinical sessions exploring nuances of each of the following, supplemented by case-based scenario presentations:

• The latest insights in pathophysiology and cardiovascular imaging
• Genetics and genetic counseling
• Various aspects of emergency aortic care logistics and preparation
• Treatment of acute ascending arch and descending dissection, with subsessions on the hyperacute/acute phase and the subacute phase
• Prophylactic aneurysm repair, including approaches to the aortic valve and understanding concomitant mitral valve disease
• Comprehensive management of chronic aortic disease, with focused discussion of screening, watchful waiting and postoperative surveillance

These core sessions are supplemented by “Patient, Family and Provider Education and Advocacy,” a special session featuring stakeholders from the Aortic Dissection Charitable Trust, the John Ritter Foundation, the Marfan Foundation and HeartValveSurgery.com. A keynote discussion with cardiac surgeon Gosta Pettersson, MD, PhD, and a non-CME industry satellite session on devices in the development pipeline round out the agenda.

The pace will be brisk, with all session presentations clocking in at 8 minutes. This promotes a focused specificity and practicality for course content, as reflected by a few representative presentation titles:

• “What can we do to slow progress in the genetically vulnerable patient?”
• “Creating a cardio-aortic triage unit: Bringing the team together”
• “Role of bedside echocardiography in acute aortic syndrome”
• “Prepping the OR for rapid induction and possible instability”
• “Building the modern hybrid OR”
• “Limited versus extended repair for type A dissection — when andhow?”
• “What’s the best antihypertensive regimen in the chronic phase of disease?”

Large and diverse faculty

Such focus and practicality are made possible by the course’s broad and diverse faculty, which includes more than 40 Cleveland Clinic experts in cardiac surgery, vascular surgery, various cardiology subspecialties, emergency medicine, pathology, anesthesiology, genetic counseling, behavioral health, diagnostic radiology, pharmacy and other fields.

They are joined by multidisciplinary aorta center teams from other leading centers: Toronto University Health Network, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and the University of Pennsylvania.

There’s similar interdisciplinary breadth in the course’s Cleveland Clinic activity directors, comprising Francis Caputo, MD, Vascular Surgery Director of the Aorta Center; Milind Desai, MD, MBA, Medical Director of the Aorta Center; Vidyasagar Kalahasti, MD, Director of the Cardiovascular Marfan and Connective Tissue Clinic; Venu Menon, MD, Section Head of Clinical Cardiology; and Eric Roselli, MD, Surgical Director of the Aorta Center.

What to expect

“Whether it’s a life-threatening emergency, a discovery while screening family members or an incidental finding, when a patient is diagnosed with an aortic condition, it involves many people,” says Dr. Roselli. “These include caregivers at every level — from emergency room to operating room to outpatient clinic — as well as friends and family. At the CLE meeting, we hear from everyone involved about how their efforts make a difference in improving lives affected by aortic disease, within minutes and over generations.”

“CLE brings together speakers from so many specialties across the aortic disease spectrum and from so many different centers that the learning opportunities are fantastic,” adds Dr. Kalahasti. “And best practices from Cleveland Clinic’s Aorta Center are shared as an example of a comprehensive multidisciplinary team approach.”

“This course is centered on learning about advanced aortic dissection care from experts in a highly multidisciplinary manner,” says Dr. Caputo.

“If you’re in need of a thorough, practical update on aortic disease management, this is likely the most well-suited opportunity for you this year,” adds Dr. Desai.