Key take-aways:
• ESC Acute CardioVascular Care brings together expertise from emergency medicine, intensive care, anaesthesiology, radiology, nursing and many other specialities.
• Acute cardiocascular care is highly multi-disciplinary and patients receiving such care are often in life-or-death situations.
• The 95 sessions in the 2-day event will include the personal account of an intensive care doctor who himself recovered from a cardiac arrest.
Sophia Antipolis, 3 March 2025: This year's ESC Acute CardioVascular Care, organised by the Association on CardioVascular Care (ACVC) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), will take place in Florence, Italy, from March 15-16.
ESC Acute CardioVascular Care brings together expertise from emergency medicine, intensive care, anaesthesiology, radiology, nursing, medical technology, paramedics, and many other healthcare professions. It is a highly multidisciplinary field and often deals with patients in life-and-death situations.
Dr. Alessandro Sionis, ACVC President-Elect & Congress Co-Chair based at the Hospital Universitario de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, Barcelona, Spain, said: "The congress will cover a wide range of topics focusing on the acute and critical care management of patients with cardiovascular disease. These will include acute coronary syndromes, acute heart failure, arrhythmias, interventional cardiology, risk factors and prevention, atrial fibrillation, the intersection with events such as pulmonary embolism, valvular heart disease and echocardiography."
The meeting will feature around 300 abstracts and 95 sessions across the two-day event. While reviewing the broad spectrum of acute cardiovascular diseases, the sessions feature two scientific and educational tracks: one on cardiac arrest and another on cardiogenic shock. Additionally, there will be sessions on the chain of survival following cardiac arrest, with unique insight given by an ICU doctor who survived a cardiac arrest himself.
Abstracts will feature original research from all the themes of the conference, including the importance of the timing of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and training sufficient numbers of the public to perform it. A separate study will focus on the importance of teaching CPR skills to children. Additional studies will explore gender differences in acute cardiac care, mortality rates in the cardiac intensive care unit, and approaches to end-of-life care. This includes addressing sensitive issues such as pain management at the end of life, avoiding futile interventions, and encouraging family discussions on providing instructions for medical teams in end-of-life care scenarios.
Dr. Hannah Schaubroeck, Congress Co-Chair based at Ghent University and Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium, added: "Patients treated in acute cardiovascular care teams are often extremely ill and facing life or death situations. The sessions and original research presented at the congress will help guide all who work in this incredibly sensitive area in their daily practice."
