Vascular News caught up with European Society for Vascular Surgery (ESVS) president Ian Loftus (London, UK) at the Vascular for Society of Great Britain and Ireland’s (VSGBI) 2023 annual scientific meeting (VSASM; 22–24 November, Dublin, Ireland) to discuss the legacy of the late Roger Greenhalgh.
“The Vascular Society was always very important to Professor Greenhalgh,” the vascular surgeon at St George’s Hospital begins, noting that Greenhalgh had been president of the society and “supported it for many years”.
At VSASM 2023, Loftus delivered a talk highlighting key updates in the aortic field. In this interview, he recalls Greenhalgh’s contribution to aortic surgery, sharing that he “really defined the pathways for patient treatment”. Loftus continues that Greenhalghs’ legacy lives on at his former centre, Imperial College London, where a number of trials in the aortic space are being conducted.
Loftus also touches on the importance of personalised, patient-centric care—one of the key themes in his aortic update talk, and a message that Greenhalgh advanced. “Professor Greenhalgh always felt that things should be much more centred on the individual patient,” Loftus says. “Some of the trials that are now taking place, and some of the ways we’re looking at guidelines, for example, [are] going to, I think, really help to define what’s better for [the] individual patient.”
Finally, Loftus highlights some of the objectives he aims to achieve as president of the ESVS. His main goal has to do with the varying levels of experience with—and exposure to—endovascular therapies across Europe, he tells this newspaper, explaining that he hopes to “open the doors to all trainees across Europe to the potentials that endovascular therapies have”.
