Celebrate a Half-Century of CABG with a Blockbuster CME on CAD’s Past, Present and Future

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the birth of modern-day coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG). How better to take note of this milestone than with a blockbuster CME course on revascularization therapy at the birthplace of modern-day CABG and selective coronary angiography?

That’s what Cleveland Clinic will be doing Friday, Nov. 3, 2017, when it hosts the 3rd Annual Sones/Favaloro Scientific Program — “Treatment of Coronary Artery Disease: Past, Present and Future” — at the Intercontinental Hotel & Conference Center on the Cleveland Clinic campus.

“In the 50 years since master surgeon René Favaloro established modern CABG here at Cleveland Clinic, our institution has accumulated vast experience with the operation, performing over 100,000 CABG surgeries to date, with excellent outcomes,” says course co-director Lars Svensson, MD, PhD, Chairman of Cleveland Clinic’s Miller Family Heart & Vascular Institute. “We are eager to share insights from that experience with participants in this one-of-a-kind conference.”

“And just as Dr. Favaloro’s work initiated modern CABG, Dr. F. Mason Sones’ pioneering work in coronary angiography at Cleveland Clinic was instrumental in the development of both CABG and percutaneous coronary intervention [PCI],” adds course co-director Steven Nissen, MD, Cleveland Clinic’s Chairman of Cardiovascular Medicine. “We honor the legacy of these two giants through this annual course that explores the state of the art in both CABG and PCI today and into the future.”

This year’s course represents a dynamic expansion of previous offerings of the Sones/Favaloro program, with a new full-day agenda and a faculty of more than 30 expert cardiologists and cardiovascular surgeons from Cleveland Clinic as well as other premier medical centers in the U.S. and U.K.

“The focus will be on current evidence-based understanding of the risks and benefits of CABG and PCI and their optimal use in clinical practice to promote best patient outcomes,” says course co-director Faisal Bakaeen, MD, a staff surgeon in Cleveland Clinic’s Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery.

The agenda aims to do so through a steady supply of laser-focused talks 15 to 20 minutes in length on highly practical topics in coronary artery disease management. Sample titles include “Noninvasive Testing: Which Test in Which Patient?” “Is PCI for Total Occlusion Justified?” and “Congenital Coronary Anomalies: When to Intervene and How.”

New this year is a series of spirited pro/con presentations with titles such as:

• Diagnostic Coronary Angiography Is Obsolete
• “Culprit Only” PCI in STEMI
• On-Pump CABG Is Better than Off-Pump CABG

Other highlights include:

• An hour featuring five 10-minute “How I Do It” videos in which Cleveland Clinic experts explain and demonstrate everything from conduit selection for CABG reoperations to stenting left main and bifurcation lesions
• An hour-long session devoted to talks on quality metrics and rankings for PCI, CABG and PCI+CABG bundles
• A keynote address on the future of U.S. healthcare by Cleveland Clinic CEO and President Toby Cosgrove, MD

And of course Drs. Sones and Favaloro get their due in a special “Historical Perspectives” section exploring both the origins and the future of PCI and CABG.

The target audience includes physicians and midlevel providers in cardiovascular medicine as well as internal medicine and its subspecialties. Full course details and registration information are at ccfcme.org/cabg50years.

This activity has been approved for AMA PRA Category 1 credit™.