JEDDAH, 4 June 2003 — The King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in Jeddah in collaboration with the Hospital European Georges Pompidou in Paris hosted the second International Cardiovascular Conference (ICC) which concluded Wednesday.
The conference covered four categories: Adult congenital heart disease, pediatric cardiology, coronary artery disease and heart failure.
The ICC 2003 targeted up-to-date cardiovascular medicine and surgery, stateof- the-art technology including minimal invasive surgery using a robot and selected topics related to the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases.
The speakers and lecturers came from various international institutions in Europe, the US and the Middle East.
Among the speakers were Dr. Hussein Gezairy, former Saudi health minister and current Middle East Regional Director of WHO, and Dr. Alain Deloche, consultant cardiovascular surgeon at Hospital European Georges Pompidou, who presented the opening lectures on June 1.
Dr. Gezairy spoke of the challenges for WHO in cardiovascular diseases in the Eastern Mediterranean Region, “The Eastern Mediterranean Region of WHO is a classic example of countries in the midst of an epidemiological transition.
Urbanization, industrialization and globalization propel lifestyle alterations that promote risk behavior and raise risk factor levels in the populations of the region.” He pointed to the fact that risk behavior causing cardiovascular diseases (CVD) is adopted early in life and sustained for many years without consequences and this behavior is increasingly prevalent in today’s adolescents and young adults leading to a CVD epidemic in tomorrow’s middle-aged and older adults.
“The WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean Region places high priority on CVD prevention programs that focus on integrated community-based intervention,” he said, “the challenge is to deliver interventions, which will promote behavioral change in the population, and to disseminate such change nationally.”
Also among the speakers was Professor Jean-Noel Fabiani from HEGP who presented a paper on minimal invasive cardiac surgery along with Professor Hamdy Massoud on Ebstein Anomaly in adults.
From the UK, Dr. Shakeel Qureshi of Guys Hospital, London presented two papers, one on adult congenital heart disease and another on pediatric cardiology.
In addition, Dr. Ahmed Kissebah from the Medical College of Wisconsin, US, opened the session on coronary artery disease by speaking on genetics and pharmcogenomics of the metabolic syndrome colon, a major and antecedent risk of CVD.
Research from around the world continues to show that heart disease is the most common cause of death.
“More than 4 million patients are admitted with unstable angina and acute MI each year and more than 1 million patients undergo angioplasty with and without stinting for acute coronary syndromes per year worldwide,” said Dr. Nasser Mahdi, chairman of the cardiovascular diseases department at KFSH.
Although exact statistics of deaths caused by heart disease are not available in Saudi Arabia, there are several factors that contribute to developing heart disease such as high blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol, smoking and obesity that are very common among the Saudi population.
In the past two decades there have been great advances in the treatment of heart disease through medication and surgery and in the prevention of heart disease.
According to WHO estimates, 16.6 million people around the world die of CVD each year and by the year 2020, it is estimated that the number of CVD-related deaths will be estimated to be 25 million worldwide.
Comprehensive cardiac rehabilitation programs have been shown to reduce mortality from coronary artery disease, re-infarction rates and hospital admissions and improve quality of life for the patient and their family.
Despite these benefits, only about 15% of qualified patients participate in cardiac rehabilitation programs.
