Prevention matters in heart care, say experts

Dubai - There were also free health checkups, healthy diet plan, physical fitness sessions, and one-to-one consultations with physicians.

What better way to celebrate Valentine's Day than to talk about having a healthy heart - literally. Doctors and medical professionals from around the world convened for the 5th Top-To-Toe Transcatheter (4TS) Cardiovascular Conference in Dubai on Thursday to gather global perspective on heart health awareness and provide a free seminar titled "Heart Matters".
Organised under the patronage of the Dubai Health Authority (DHA), in collaboration with American College of Cardiology (UAE Chapter), Emirates Cardiac Society and International Society of Endovascular Specialists, leading figures in cardiovascular health shared their ground-breaking research and technologies on topics ranging from hypertension to silent heart attack and heart diseases caused by smoking, stress, obesity and diabetics.
There were also free health checkups, healthy diet plan, physical fitness sessions, and one-to-one consultations with physicians. The three-day summit, attended by cardiologists, radiologists, vascular and cardiac surgeons, lipidologists, neurologists and neuro surgeons, and endocrinologists, will run until Saturday.
"The effects and impacts of heart diseases exceed those who are affected by them, as such diseases have a direct impact on the sustainable development and growth of the society," said Humaid Al Qattami, DHA Chairman of the board and Director-General, during the plenary session. He underlined that medical professionals should "(unite) efforts to face the challenges associated with chronic heart diseases, which exhaust the people and negatively impact the economy".
"Prevention systems alone can prevent the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases. There is an urgent need to develop new diagnostic and treatment methods to provide the doctors and experts with the necessary tools that can help them with the early discovery and management of diseases efficiently," he pointed out.
"We should not stop our efforts or surrender to the challenges that cardiovascular diseases and other chronic diseases are imposing on us. The rapid development the world is witnessing in terms of technologies, sciences, creative ideas and successful experiments in healthcare encourages us to be optimistic," Al Qattami added.
Organisers noted that 4TS is a great platform to learn from medical professionals globally and build networks to contributing to the heart healthcare of the region.
For his part, Dr Omar Hallak, chairman and founder of the 4TS Cardiovascular Conference, added: "The summit will deliberate on the latest guidelines and evidence-based treatment for cardiovascular problems, current state-of-the-art treatment options for patients with coronary, vascular, congenital, aortic and heart failure problems, methodologies for accurate and timely assessment of patients and challenging cardiovascular cases around the world."
Dr Hallak, who is also a consultant interventional cardiologist at King's College Hospital London and Dubai, noted that in the UAE, the average age of residents getting a cardiovascular disease (CVD) is 10 years younger than the global average. "Worldwide it's mid-50s, but here, it's around mid-40s; I even had a patient with CVD who was just 28 years old," he noted.
angel@khaleejtimes.com

Mending a broken heart
A total artificial heart is being developed by a German company to replace human heart transplant and fix a failing heart.
The machine is called ReinHeart, designed to become a fully implantable heart with features that mimic the native heart function.
"The central element of the artificial heart system is the pumping unit which completely replaces the human heart," Heiko De Ben, a biomedical engineer and chief technology officer at ReinHeart TAH GmbH, told Khaleej Times on the sidelines of the 5th Top-To-Toe Transcatheter (4TS) Cardiovascular Conference in Dubai on Thursday.
De Ben said that a interdisciplinary team of engineers, technicians and surgeons is working closely together to create a maintenance-free total artificial heart (TAH) that is small enough to be implanted in the majority of patients with a failing heart.
He added: "Research and development began a decade ago, in 2009, and we are planning to have a design freeze (when the design is fixed) by end of 2020. And by end of 2022 or early 2023, we are hoping to have our first artificial heart implantation on humans."

How a ReinHeart works and mimics the function of a real heart
> The pumping chambers and the artificial valves imitate the function of the heart chambers
> The drive unit is controlled by a separate implantable controller unit which contains an internal battery
> A coil system attached to the controller unit allows energy transmission through the closed skin to charge the battery.
> The coil system consists of a receiver coil, which is implanted under the skin, and a transmitter coil, which is positioned on the skin outside the body
> The energy to power the system is provided by batteries that are worn externally.

• KT For Good