Nearly 800 Abstracts to Be Presented at TCT

The Cardiovascular Research Foundation received more than 1,500 abstract submissions in 2011, an increase of 25% over last year.

 “We received close to 300 more submissions compared with 2009,” Colleen Whelan, director of CME and program development for CRF, told TCTMD Daily. “The number is higher than it’s ever been before.” Whelan added that this will be the second year that the TCT abstracts are published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Almost 800 abstracts will be presented the morning of Tuesday, November 8. A group of eight to 10 experts reviews all submissions over a roughly two-week period, and abstracts are scored according to criteria including the quality of the research and the topical nature of the study. A review committee then decides which abstracts are worthy of presentation based on scientific rigor, topicality and broadness of appeal, eg, a study that seeks to address a more mainstream question is more likely to be selected for oral presentation than a study that looks at an issue that affects a smaller number of physicians or patients. The top 30 poster abstracts by grade are then selected for special recognition.

Gary Mintz, MD, the CRF’s Chief Medical Officer and a TCT Co-director, called this year’s abstracts “outstanding.” He said there are a handful of qualities that separate the top abstracts from the rest including novelty, originality and importance.

“If it’s a novel topic,” he said. “If it’s good data. If it’s a clinical study with enough power to reach good conclusions. And if it’s well presented. These are the hallmarks of a good abstract. If it happens to address a very hot area, that’s a bonus.”

TCT tries to stay on top of emerging issues in cardiology, especially when choosing abstracts. Whelan said there are two oral sessions involving valvular disease because the field has “exploded,” resulting in part from the pending FDA approval of transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR). DES would have been the hot issue a few years ago, she said.

Mintz said he’s looking forward to presentations on long-term data involving DES and the use of TAVR to treat degenerated surgically implanted aortic valve prostheses, and added that he hopes attendees can take away something new and interesting from the conference.

“We look at TCT as a meeting that once a year puts a period on interventional cardiology: ‘This is the state of the art as it exists at the beginning of November 2011,’” he said. “Everybody comes with a certain level of interest and expertise and a certain number of holes in their knowledge. I hope everyone learns something new, different and unexpected. I hope everybody sees something they never thought about that will prompt them to be a better interventionalist.”