NEWSLETTER

March 2000

European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery
The Cottage, 16 High Street
Windsor, Berkshire, SL4 1LD, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)1753 832 166
Fax: +44 (0)1753 620 407
E-mail: info@eacts.co.uk
Web: http://www.eacts.org

LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

Dear Colleagues,

Earlier this year a considerable number of members of our Association participated in the Annual Meeting of the STS in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I want to take this opportunity to thank all of them for their demonstration of cooperative friendship with our colleagues of the sister society. On behalf of the EACTS my particular thanks are directed, however, to the President, Nicholas Kouchoukos, M. D., the Chairman of the Organizing Committee, Robert E. Cline, M. D., and the Council of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons for their warm hospitality and a superb meeting including the highlight of the Lady Windridge Cruise. I am looking forward to see these joint activities finding their continuation at the Annual Meeting of the EACTS in Frankfurt, where Siegfried Hagl is really putting all his efforts into a perfect preparation

The deadline for submission of abstracts for the 14^th Annual Meeting 1^st of April is approaching rapidly. I wish to encourage everybody to share new results, insights and achievements contributing to a fruitful and outstanding scientific program.

One of the very important issues in European medicine is the development of a rather homogenous academic education and postgraduate training as a condition for exchange within clinical institutions and for mutual recognition of qualifications. This no less applies to cardio-thoracic surgery. Recently, in Germany an initiative has been launched which is to unite orthopedics (currently an independent specialty) and traumatology – a subspecialty in combination with general surgery. The new concept which will be voted upon and which would come into effect in 2001 would lead to more accordance with presently valid regulations in several European countries and it would rely on a common trunk for all surgical disciplines. There is a good chance that cardiac surgery (now an independent specialty) and thoracic surgery among others will find acceptance as equally ranking specializations in the Federal Chamber of Physicians in Germany, the supreme institution responsible for these decisions. It can be hoped that this example will serve as an incentive for a Europe wide model. We shall pursue all endeavours in its favour on the national ground. This will support the efforts of Hans Huysmans, Jules Dussek, and many others on the European level. The benefit will be on the patients‘ side when an optimum of training and clinical knowledge becomes common standard. The initiatives of the EACTS directed towards measurable quality of training conditions are of great importance for the further position of General Thoracic Surgery. In particular, Walter Klepetko’s activities promoting the dialogue among Thoracic Surgeons and institutions for Thoracic Surgery deserve not only appreciation but also engaged cooperation. In a time, which is characterized by the predominance of political and administrative influence it appears more than mandatory that professional expertise is implemented and that experts recuperate responsibility.

Joachim Hasse, M.D., FETCS

REPORT FROM THE SECRETARY GENERAL
Heart Centre, University Hospital
901 85 Umeå, Sweden
Tel: +46 90 785 36 76,
Fax + 46 90 785 36 01,
E-mail: eacts.secretary@mailbox.calypso.net

Joint meeting EACTS-ESTS

The final decision about the joint meeting EACTS-ESTS in Lisbon 2001 has now been taken as the ESTS Council unanimously approved of the presented plans. Apart from the usual cardiac material this meeting promises to contain the largest General Thoracic Surgery Meeting ever. With the joint efforts of the two societies and with two and a half days with two parallel sessions it has already evoked much interest among thoracic surgeons.

Development within our Executive Secretariat

As informed in the last Newsletter our Executive Secretariat is now situated in Windsor (please see top front page for details). The office has now been equipped with the appropriate business gadgets such as computers, software, telephone systems etc. It is ready to receive all your questions and to help you in any matter about the Association. The voices you will hear belong to Kathy McGree and Linda Collis.

Relationship with CASIL

It seems that we are now entering the end of the process of severing the relationship with CASIL. The audit for the fiscal year ending March 1999 is finally cleared. Almost all of our affairs are now conducted from the Windsor office. What remains is to finally extricate our last pieces of property and to settle the accounts for the Glasgow Meeting.

Finances

In the previous Newsletter, some concern was raised about the finances of the EACTS. This was primarily due to the fact that we were essentially blind as regards our finances because of the lack of cooperation in these matters shown by CASIL. For safety’s sake, Council wanted to be cautious and abstain for the time being from all expenses not considered absolutely necessary.

Since then the information has gradually come over into our own hands. We can now state that we are in a reasonably good financial shape. The cautious development of the activities of the EACTS can therefore continue. We are not a rich Society and have to invest gradually. We believe that the new organisation will be able to make more money for the Association than the previous one.

One of the future investments is that of buying the title of the Journal. The Editor and the Council are very happy with the collaboration with Elsevier. However, there are some definite advantages as regards level of freedom of action in owning the title. Already when we switched to Elsevier, we agreed that the title would be bought from them after about ten years. In order not to have to borrow money and get into debt, we have to save quite a substantial amount.

In order to further aid in the development of the Journal, Council approved a budget of CHF 205,600 (a slight increase in comparison with last year).

New Associate Editors of the Journal

The Editor would like to develop the organisation in the Editorial Office by inviting two more Associate Editors. Manuel Antunes has confirmed his willingness to take on review of papers in Adult Cardiac surgery and Robert Dion will take on papers in Valves.

EU Liaison Committee

The function of this Committee has been discussed. It was felt that those chairmen of committees that have reason to deal with the EU bureaucracy should be members of this committee under the continued chairmanship of Hans Huysmans. Thus the new EU Liaison Committee consists of

Hans Huysmans, chairman,
Hans Borst (East European Committee)
Paolo Macchiarini (Research and Research funding Committee)
Ken Taylor (Database Committee)
Willem Daenen (Councillor)

14^thAnnual Meeting, Frankfurt, Germany 7-11 October 2000

The Preliminary Programme and Registrations Forms are available online at http://www.eacts.org

IMPORTANT DEADLINES 2000

1 April Receipt of Abstracts
Receipt of Young Investigator’s Award Abstracts
30 April Deadline for application for Membership of EACTS
1 July Deadline for early Registration Fees *
12 September Deadline for Pre-Registration

* N.b.! Junior members are entitled free registration provided they meet the deadline for early registration.

SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS

As there are some new features about the abstracts, the full instruction text follows below. Abstract submission should preferably be done online via the homepage of EACTS, www.eacts.org but paper submission will also be available.

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS
Please follow the instructions below, otherwise your abstract cannot be selected for review.

• The abstract language is English
• The text should be single-spaced, not more than 250 words and fit in the area provided on the abstract form (the title and presenters are not included in the 250 words).
• The use of 1–2 tables or graphs is possible.
• The abstract must consist of four paragraphs labelled: OBJECTIVE, METHODS, RESULTS, CONCLUSIONS.
• The text and the title should be free from abbreviations, except those commonly used (e.g., LVEF, CABG, VSD, ASD etc). It should con-cisely address the problem and the purpose of the study (OBJECTIVE); how the study was performed (METHODS); the main findings with numerical data and statistical significance (RESULTS); and the principal conclusions drawn from the study (CONCLUSIONS).
• The title of the abstract should be printed in CAPITAL LETTERS; the name(s) of the author(s) is preceeded by the initials (omit titles). There should be no more than 6 authors for abstracts from a single institution, 9 in multi-institutional papers. Underline the name of the presenter.
• Under the title and authors, type the name of the institution, city and country. Since the abstracts will be judged anonymously, the text may not reveal the institutional affiliation.
• Mark the category which best describes the subject of your abstract. If the paper is to be considered for a Young Investigator’s Award, mark the corresponding field.
• Read, accept and sign the declaration at the bottom of the abstract form.

The material should not have been published or presented at any major meeting before.

Authors will be notified in writing in June 2000 whether or not the EACTS 2000 Programme Committee has accepted their abstract.

All papers accepted for presentation at the Meeting (excluding films and posters) will be published, subject to editorial review, in the European Journal of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (EJCTS). Posters may be published after going through the normal reviewing procedure for the Journal.

!TO THE PRINTERS – insert here ‘NEW N.b.!’ in the marginal, diagonal text in red – or preferred style for reader’s attention:

NEW N.B.!

Submission of an abstract implies a commitment on the part of all authors to submitting a full manuscript and three (3) copies to EJCTS (Publication Desk in the Congress Centre Frankfurt), at or before the 14th Annual Meeting, should it be accepted for oral presentation.
This helps to speed up the processing and thereby the publication of the Journal. The audiovisual recording of the scientific presentations will be the property of the European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery.

All presentations should be made with single projection slides (no dual projection will be available). Computer disc presentation (but not own computor) will be possible provided that the speaker informs the Executive Secretariat by 15 September 2000 at the latest.

No Shows / Withdrawal of Manuscripts

Failure to present accepted material at the Annual Meeting and/or withdrawal of submitted papers after the first revision by the Editorial office, will prevent the authors to make any presentation in the Annual Meeting during the next two years.

NEW N.B.!

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The Editor requires authors to disclose any commercial associations that might pose a conflict of interest in connection with the submitted article. All sources of funding for work should be acknowledged in a footnote on the title page, as should all institutional affiliations of the authors (including corporate appointments). Other kinds of associations, such as consultancies, stock ownership or other equity interests or patent licensing arrangements should be disclosed to the Editor in the cover letter at the time of submission. If no conflict of interest exists, please state this in the cover letter. The Editor reserves the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the above mentioned requirements. The authors will be held responsible for false statements or for failure to fulfill the above mentioned requirements.

FILM SESSIONS

Authors are requested to submit their abstracts either electronically via the web, or in paper format (see instructions for abstract submission). A copy of their film, which should be no longer than 8 minutes, in VHS-PAL format, should be sent to the EACTS Executive Secretariat for review. Sound is acceptable but not necessary. However, live narration by the principal surgeon is a requirement of participation.

Guidelines to authors:

1. Films should be essentially technical movies
2. Avoid time-consuming sequences showing conventional approaches and cannulations (cardiac surgery). Specific approach should be briefly demonstrated only in very particular cases (e.g. minimally invasive, etc).
3. Indicate clearly the view that is being shown, e.g. surgeon’s view (as seen by the surgeon), overhead view, or view from the patient’s head.
4. When it is difficult to identify the details or orientation of a surgical view, an explanatory drawing may be helpful and should be shown within the film just before the operative view.
5. Should an author wish to report results of series, the film itself should be shortened to 5 minutes and “slides“ incorporated in the film (not shown on separate projector).

NEW !

Poster Presentations

Poster presentations will be digitally projected and shown in a permanent Poster presentation.

There will be one new feature that requires your attention: The Poster presentation will change some of its features:

1. There will be a permanent Poster presentation during the entire Annual Meeting. Presenters are to mount their posters in the Poster Hall.

2. The Posters will also be presented in our usual way at Poster Sessions. The presentations will be projected from CD-ROMs, made either at the presenter’s department beforehand or from the paper version in Frankfurt. Paper abstracts will then be requested at least two hours prior to the presentation.

The advantages by using digital projection are manifold. The posters will be shown on a big screen and figures, tables and graphs can be magnified during the discussion. The quality of the poster presentation will in general be improved.

Presentations from personal computers of your own will not be allowed in Frankfurt. Computers will be available for presenters with diskettes.

Discussion Groups

The EACTS’ homepage will start a series of discussion groups. One of the major problems with discussion groups is that your discussion gets lost in the lot. We have therefore defined some grouping platforms. Within each platform you can choose to continue on an existing subject or start a new one. It will all become clear when you visit the pages on http://www.eacts.org/. If you think that we should create a new grouping, please let us know. Please make EACTS an open organisation wherein everyones’s opinion is of utmost importance.

Nominations for the Year 2000

Nominations for next year’s election (Vice President) may be done to any of the members of the Nominating Committee, who will consider your suggestion. You are welcome to contact any of the following Committee members prior to 1 May 2000:

Prof. Hans G. Borst
Widenmayerstr. 7
D-805 38 Munich, Germany
Phone/fax + 49 89 29161191
HGBorst@gmx.net

Prof. Toni Lerut
Heelkunde Thoraxheelkunde
UZ Gasthuisberg
Herestrat 49
3000 Leuven, Belgium
Phone +32 16 34 68 19, fax 32 16 34 68 21
Toni.Lerut@uz.kuleuven.ac.be

Prof Ernst Wolner
AK der Stadt Wien
Universitätsklinik Chirurgie, Herz- und Thoraxchirurgie
Währinger Gürtel 18-20
A-1090 Vienna, Austria
Phone +43 1 40 400 6966, fax +43 1 40 400 6968
ernst.wolner@akh-wien.ac.at

Prof. Eugène Baudet
Dept. Cardiovascular Surgery
Hopital de Haute-Leveque
Ave. de Magellen
33604 Bordeaux-Pessac, France
Phone + 33 5 56 36 70 49, fax + 33 5 56 07 22 78
baudet@francemultimedia.fr

Prof. David Wheatley
Cardiac Surgery
Royal Infirmary
10 Alexandra Parade
Glasgow G31 2ER, UK
Phone +44 141 211 4730, fax +44 141 552 0987
d.j.wheatley@clinmed.gla.ac.uk

Your privileged membership of CTSNet

As a member of EACTS you automatically have a private homepage and you are also a member of CTSNet. In order to enjoy all advantages of your memberships your e-mail address must be inserted in your homepage. The Council of EACTS quite often wants to get in touch with some of its members by e-mail via the EACTS homepage, but we are sorry to say that contact details are often missing. Likewise the CTSNet will in the future send important information to its members via the e-mail addresses on the web. If you are not there, nobody can reach you and you will miss valuable contacts with colleagues.

Have you forgotten your password and ID? Send a note to Maud Zingmark at the address eacts.secretary@mailbox.calypso.net

We hope that all of you have discovered this unique educational tool and that you frequently visit http://www.ctsnet.org The contents of the CTSNet is continuously updated with valuable information.

Electronic Newsletters?

We are considering to publish Newsletters only in electronic version on our homepage. When a new issue has been prepared, members will be notified by e-mail. More information about this issue will be included in the next Newsletter. We will make this proposal during the General Assembly in Frankfurt. In the meantime, if you have any comments, please forward your thoughts to the Secretary General.

AATS Meeting - first ever Worldwide Web cast!

The 80^th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery in Toronto 30 April - 3 May will be a milestone event: the first ever Worldwide Web cast of an entire cardio-thoracic surgical meeting. You can watch the conference live - all five days - and submit questions that will be delivered to speakers for their response. In addition, the entire proceedings will be archived on the website for one year for your review.

AATS President Delos M. Cosgrove has made the following statement about this event:

"Because of globalizing advances in telecommunications with the potential for immediate dissemination of scientific information, the AATS must not educate and inform only our immediate audience. It is imperative that we make important information instantaneously available to the entire world of thoracic surgery. To achieve this, we are creating a global medical meeting where medical personnel around the world will be able to participate in scientific presentations and interact on a "real time" basis with colleagues who are attending the meeting. This Web cast will explode the traditional barriers of time and space and enable all professionals to participate in a shared experience."

Forthcoming Meetings of The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS), The American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS) and European Association for Cardio-thoracic Surgery (EACTS)

2000
30 April - 3 May Toronto, Ontario AATS
7-11 October Frankfurt, Germany EACTS
2001
29 - 31 January New Orleans, LA STS
6-9 May San Diego, CA AATS
16-19 September Lisbon, Portugal EACTS

Council and Committees of EACTS 1999/2000

Please see http://www.ctsnet.org/doc/4028