In the space race to build a better conference opener, it would be hard to top this year's launch of the Society of Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiology (SCVIR) annual meeting March 24-30 in San Diego. The gala reception at Miramar Marine Base will feature a live USO show, dinner, cocktails, and pilot-staffed jets that attendees can climb into for a tour. "The whole (event) faces the runways," said program chair Dr. M. Victoria Marx, "so you can see the airplanes land and take off."
The meeting proper starts March 25 with symposia on three hot interventional topics: spine intervention, gynecologic intervention and gene therapy and local drug delivery. The latter, a day-long interdisciplinary meeting, will feature Dr. Helen Blau on the topic of vasculogenesis and angiogenesis, and Dr. Ron Crystal, who will talk about cardiac-directed gene therapy.
"In vascular disease, a lot of the drive for gene therapy has come from cardiology because the heart is so vital," said Marx, a radiologist with the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, "but a lot of these techniques are going to have noncardiac applications. Both of the speakers are known worldwide in the field of gene therapy and cardiology."
The rest of the week is devoted to morning plenary sessions designed to interest SCVIR's entire membership, including sessions on the management of vascular thrombosis, brachytherapy with a live case demo, and business aspects of developing a vascular center. Afternoons will feature didactic lectures, scientific presentations, and courses, including one called "The Bleeding Edge of Medical Innovations: Tools for the 21st Century" that will highlight techniques from outside disciplines that may come into play in the future.
"These speakers want to talk to us," said Marx, "because they view our membership as an innovative group of people who will look at the technology and say, "'Hey, I can think of an application for that.'"
In other highlights, a hands-on fluoroscopy lab will give participants experience in deploying stent grafts under fluoroscopy, and performing vertebroplasty in a model. A billing and coding workshop is designed to help people make the best use of existing codes, and show them how to initiate the process of changing or adding a code. Visit www.scvir.org/2000 for more information, and to register online.
Emergency radiology in Orlando
The American Society of Emergency Radiology holds its 11th scientific meeting in Orlando, FL, from March 29 to April 2, with a program that includes workshops, focus sessions, and scientific papers on topics of interest to emergency radiologists and physicians, as well as trauma surgeons. Participants can register online at www.erad.org/aser2000.
Conference chair Dr. Leonard Swischuk of the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston said the meeting focuses on fast, accurate diagnosis of acutely presenting conditions. Sessions cover all physiologic systems and patient ages, he said, and are presented on a two-year alternating basis to avoid repetition.
"The conference is a very good up-to-date review of emergency medicine and imaging," he said, noting the meeting's growing value as a forum for radiologists and ER surgeons concerned about turf issues.
"We want to be the place where the two disciplines can meet, and work in unison, and provide the initial ingredients for solving these turf battles," Swischuk said.
This year's presentations include a workshop on the medical and surgical emergencies of pregnancy. New techniques in acute stroke imaging and treatment are featured as well, with a talk on critical information needed for acute stroke management. Workshops on oncologic emergencies and acute abdominal conditions will also be presented. And for the first time, some sessions will feature electronic desktop modules the audience can use to interact with presenters and test their understanding of the subject matter, according to Swischuk.
A workshop on the mechanisms of injury, with presentations on car crashes, falls, and assaults, will help doctors gain a deeper understanding of the physiology of trauma. Understanding "where the forces are applied, and where they are dissipated," can go a long way toward explaining abnormal imaging and clinical findings, Swischuk said.
As part of a pediatric trauma workshop scheduled for the last day, Swischuk will present a paper on techniques for distinguishing child abuse from legitimate but unusual accidents.
"There's a real trend now to overcall and accuse too early, so this is just a cautionary note," he said.
Abdominal imaging in Hawaii
March also marks the first joint meeting of the Society of Gastrointestinal Radiologists (SGR) and the Society of Uroradiology, to take place at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kauai, HI, March 12-17. SGR president Dr. David Stephens of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, said combining forces for the meeting was a natural outgrowth of new imaging technologies.
"We're moving towards more cross-sectional imaging," Stephens said. "In the days of barium to look at the GI tract, and intravenous urograms to look at the urinary tract, they were separate -- you saw one without the other. But with things like CT, ultrasound and magnetic resonance, the whole belly gets displayed. Also, the fellowships are being combined into abdominal imaging -- so there are some natural reasons behind it. But it isn't really a merger yet; we're not sure it will come to that."
The program covers the full spectrum of modern abdominal imaging, including problems that arise in daily practice, and presentations on major cancers of the abdomen, including prostate, colon and rectal cancers, pelvic cancer in women, and cancers of the liver and pancreas.
Special "How I do it" sessions every morning offer practical advice in techniques such as GERD evaluation, herniography, and prostate ultrasound. Morning symposia will cover topics of interest to both fields: abdominal trauma, acute abdominal conditions, and incidental and problematic masses. Friday's symposium will address the cutting edge: new techniques in abdominal imaging and intervention. More information can be found at www.sgr.org/sgr.htm.
Also noteworthy is this year's annual Cannon lecture, featuring Dr. Barry Marshall. He is renowned for launching the battle in the late 1980s that exposed H. pylori bacteria as a major cause of gastric ulcers.
"It was a great story," Stephens said. "No one believed him at first, and he wound up infecting himself just to prove it."
By Eric Barnes
AuntMinnie.com staff writer
February 25, 2000
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