Towards Vascular and Endovascular Consensus

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Last year, over 1,500 people from 60 countries attended the 27th Charing Cross International Symposium, highlights of which included Medtronic’s launch of the Valiant Thoracic Stent Graft, Bard Peripheral Vascular’s launch of the Dynaflow Bypass Graft and Vascutek’s launch of the Anaconda AAA stent graft system. Boston Scientific showcased its EndoTex NexStent while Cook showcased its Zenith TX2 Thoracic TAA Endovascular Graft. Gore Medical Products Division also hosted a reception to celebrate their 30th anniversary.

The first day of the symposium highlighted controversies and challenges in interventional radiology, with lively discussion and presentations by Johannes Lammer, Ziv Haskal and Anders Lunderquist. The Global Endovascular Forum, held on day two of the symposium, saw a series of rapid-paced and well attended sessions peppered by lively and spirited debates by the likes of Peter Gaines vs. Peter Bell, Ross Naylor vs. Ken Ouriel and Roger Baird and Roger Greenhalgh vs. Ouriel and Piergiorgio Cao.

The final two days of the conference focused on the 27th Symposium’s title of ‘Towards Vascular and Endovascular Consensus’. A series of presentations by endovascular and surgical protagonists were debated by an adversarial panel of three, with a consensus reached upon at the close of discussion. The written consensus can be read at www.cxsymposium.com/CXconsensus.

Running adjacently to the sessions throughout the symposium was the CX Innovation Showcase, the CX Vascular Imaging course, the inaugural CX Vascular Nursing Course and the inaugural CX Training Village. The latter provided vascular surgeons with the opportunity to use an endovascular training simulator, developed by the Swedish company Mentice, providing realistic visual and tactile feedback. The training was aimed at allowing surgeons to become proficient at procedure in a very short timeframe – without the pressures of actual surgery – utilising a virtual anatomy created from a 3D scan of the patient’s anatomy. In addition, surgical models provided by Limbs and Things gave the opportunity for training in open surgical techniques.