9th Prague Workshop on Catheter Ablation
with Live Demonstrations
March 5–7, 2006
Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine Prague, Czech Republic
under the auspices of the Czech Society of Cardiology and its Working Group on Arrhythmias and Cardiac Pacing
WELCOME ADDRESS
Dear Colleagues,
It is my distinct pleasure to welcome you to the 9th international Prague workshop on catheter ablation with live demonstrations. I would like to remember you that 9 years have already elapsed since the first meeting in 1998. The intention at that time was to promote the knowledge in rapidly developing field of catheter ablation in the Czech Republic and other countries of the former Eastern block. The concept was simple, select distinguished world electrophysiologists who agree to participate and let them to demonstrate different ablation strategies or techniques from the beginning to the end. In the same time, the audience should have an opportunity to interact – ask questions or express their suggestions during the entire procedure. Growing number of attendees from many countries (not necessarily from former communist states) and the fact that many of them come almost every year suggest that the concept remains still attractive and even more important in this period of enormous technological progress. Demonstration of novel technologies is important for many electrophysiologists when considering further development of their laboratories. All this was only possible with continuous support of the endowment fund „Modern Treatment of Arrhythmias“ and also through the generous sponsorship of the industry.
Encouraged by the above tradition, we have decided to focus our attention this year on the topic of ventricular tachycardias in structural heart disease and demonstrate different approaches to their interventional treatment using modern technologies. In order to get in depth knowledge of the topic, definition of the substrate, electrocardiographic manifestation, possibility of its imaging, history of catheter ablation and opportunity for complete exclusion of the substrate by the surgeon will be reviewed. This introduction will be followed by lectures about clinical utility of non-contact mapping and electroanatomical mapping in this setting, another review about epicardial access and finally by three live cases. As in previous years, interesting case reports or other short presentations will be discussed in a special session.
Thanks to Hansen Medical, Inc, you will have a unique opportunity to listen to a lecture about early experience with robotic navigation of the ablation catheter and to watch catheter ablation procedure for atrial fibrillation using this system.
We will also include few short industry-sponsored lectures on technical advances in mapping and/or catheter ablation.
As usually, the scientific programme will be followed by a reception that will take place in a special place in the historical centre of Prague.
We hope that you will find the workshop interesting and look forward to meeting you in Prague.
Professor Josef Kautzner, MD, PhD, FESC
Head, Department of Cardiology, IKEM
