ACC, ORLANDO, 29th-31st MARCH 2009

Well the " big one " starts this weekend, almost as Tiger Woods ( I hope he makes the cut ), takes to the Tee Box 1 at the Arnold Palmer Bayhill Invitation. By the " big one " I mean the Annual Scientific Meeting of the American College of Cardiology. I had a quick look at the Scientific program, especially the late breaking trial. Looks interesting, but nothing revolutionary. There will be those trials on STEMI management, statin therapies, " combo pills" , and a couple of interesting trials in interventional cardiology. In fact, on the side lines ( now almost part of ) the ACC is the i-2 summit, this time without the participation of the Society for Cardiac Angiography and Interventions, but in collaboration with the " business minded " CRF organisation. In fact, the ACC is said to have been queried by the US government on the business relationship between CRF and ACC. But suffice to say that the i2 Summit at ACC 2009 is chaired by the pragmatic and balanced interventionist, Dr David Holmes of Mayo.
Anyway, the Orbus Niche people are presenting their 6 months trial data in the use of the GENOUS stent in the management of STEMI patients. I was made to understand ( corridor talk ) that the results are good. I will venture a guess that the results are like the rest. It should be a safe stent, with low Stent thrombosis rates ( at 6 months, it will be too short to tell ) amd a usual late loss of about 0.4-0.5 mm and a low 6 months TLR. But then we know that at 6 months, you can hardly tell anything. I wonder why Orbus Niche is so keen to present the data at 6 months and not 1 year, unless they are afraid of losing ground to their competitor.
I am also quite keen to see the results of Salim Yusuf's group, on the use of a 3 in 1 combo pill for high risk CAD prevention. Of course JUPITER, the sensation of the last ACC is back in some rehash form, to tell us that the marketing goes on, and to sub-analyse some of the data. Well, rosuvastatin is doing well locally and globally, especially with the lost of patency of atorvastatin.
All in all, the ACC 2009 program looks interesting and will teach us more for the care of our patients, but I do not think that it is worth travelling 24 hours across many time zones, when I can learn it all with a few clicks of the mouse. But then again, I do not have the thrill of being there. Some of us do not mind watching the European Cup from the comfort of our homes while some would rather go to Rome to watch it. Your choice.