JUNE 2009

Dear BACTS member,

It is with pleasure that we write you to keep you updated concerning ongoing activities in our society.

At the end of April 2009, the BACTS organized two separate sessions which has contributed to the success of the 10th Belgian Surgical Week (over 500 participants) that took place in Ostend under the presidency of one of our members, Prof. Dr. D. Van Raemdonck.

On the Friday parallel sessions, with the input of several members of our society who also belongs to the national thoracic LOK/GLEM (LOK/GLEM 1273), the first session was devoted to both Data Acquisition and Reporting in Thoracic surgery, a process that the Board would like to initiate nationally in a very similar way that the BACTS Cardiac Database has been set up. For this purpose, we had invited Dr A. Brunelli, the current chairman of the European Society of Thoracic Surgery Database Committee, to present the ESTS web-based database. Fruitful discussions for its use for our Society with bi-directional data exchange were initiated.

The second session was devoted to the multidisciplinary approach in thoracic surgery and the several aspects of Medicine in which surgeons collaborating together greatly benefit the patients.

As organized during previous years, the BACTS participated on the Saturday Ethic Sessions during which participants gained a more in-depth knowledge of topics such as the KCE (Kennis Centrum for Excellence) view on Health Technologies Assessment in the field of cardiac surgery (Dr  A Van den Bruel), or the history of Cardiac surgery in Belgium (Prof. R Suy). Finally, Dr B. Stockman the current Chairman of the Cardiac Database Committee, presented the first set of data from the 2007 cardiac activity nationwide. Unfortunately, the presentation by Prof. I.Rodrigus, President of the College for Cardiac Surgery was cancelled. The presentations are available on our website homepage.

This naturally brings us to the next BACTS scientific meeting that will be held on November 14th 2009 in Brussels.

A year ago, after thorough data analysis and discussion within the BACTS Board  we had initiated some modifications in order to set a more attractive Annual meeting.

Firstly, the Scientific Committee has proposed two additional forms of scientific communications

• Selected Video presentation that would describe innovative techniques, cases of special interest to the whole community, techniques and tricks that should be in the armamentarium of any cardio-thoracic surgeon to deal with perioperative unexpected events,…
• Poster presentation for the submitted work that would not have been selected for oral presentation

Secondly, the Scientific Committee has decided that submissions of important scientific work and/or contributions that would have been already presented at international meeting(s) but not being published yet in a peer-review journal should be encouraged by leading centers, and/or surgeons and/or physicians.

The 2008 Annual meeting was a success, both in terms of scientific content, with well-balanced invited lectures from  highly ranked experts in their respective fields, and in term of participants with a final  number of 117 registrations. During the meeting itself, thanks to the participation of all, we had very active sessions and we have greatly appreciated everyone’s input.

In 2009, we would like the incoming meeting to be as successful as in 2008. During two preliminary meetings, the Scientific Committee together with the Board has unanimously decided that the 2009 Scientific Meeting will focus on the theme of heart failure patients for the cardiac sessions and on anatomical non-lobar resection in early stage non small cell lung cancers for the thoracic session.
To cover the theme of Heart failure, we will have Dr Philippe Leger, from Paris (France), to discuss the acute management of heart failure patients for which both medical and surgical aspects will be covered. Dr Lorenzo Menicanti, from Milan (Italy) will discuss the area of left ventricular remodeling.

In the thoracic sessions, we will have the pleasure and honour to host Dr Rodney Landreneau,  from the University of Pittsburgh (USA) whose group has been particularly active both in the field of  Minimally invasive surgical approaches to lung cancer and in the field of parenchymal-sparing lung surgery for early stage NSCLCs .

Aside from scientific topics, during the last months, the BACTS together with the Belgian Working group on Interventional Cardiology (BWIC), has been involved in discussions with the RIZIV/INAMI and KCE representatives on the issue of reimbursement of transcatheter heart valves. The current state is that aside for continuing registry data acquisition in Belgium, the RIZIV/INAMI and KCE representatives has emphasized that the most important decision making information will be provided by the current CRT US-based Partner Trial whose first results are expected late 2009-early 2010. Therefore, the BACTS has supported a position statement that will need further re-evaluation. This statement has been annexed to this Newsletter.

Another aspect that I would have like to share with you in this 1st semester newsletter is regarding the subtle intertwining between database commitments to encoding and reporting on one side, and on the other side incoming studies initiated either by the College of cardiac surgery or the Database committee.

As many of you might know, partial financing of the society and its database is granted annually by government authorities as part of an agreement from the College of cardiac surgery to provide annual data report as well as specific study results on topic that deals with quality of care in cardiac surgery.

The College of Cardiac Surgery defines each year its project in the beginning of the year, to fulfill the requirements of the government to continue with the financing.

• For 2007, the results of the study on “Guidelines for quality improvement in Cardiac Surgery” were published in the December number of the Acta Chirurgica Belgica.
• For 2008, a project on arterial revascularisation was entered together with the 2006 Database report. Since “the use of at least one arterial graft” was cited by the majority of surgeons as being an important quality indicator, this item was chosen for further study. The College has draft a new voluntary survey to all active cardiac surgeons and BACTS members to probe on their use of arterial grafts. At closure date of reporting, the response rate for this survey barely reached the 30% of all BACTS members, a response rate that remains under the objective of 45-50% that was set. Together with data from the Database Committee, the aggregate of the available data will hopefully give a nice overview of current practice in Belgium. The results of the survey are available on our website homepage.
• For 2009, a study on aortic valve replacement will be performed, where once again results of a general survey will be merged with data from the DBC. You will be contacted by e-mail in the near future.

The Database Committee, is preparing further studies, which can be used in a later state by the College as the project for upcoming years. Please be aware that all the projects and results are presented to and approved by the Board before publication.

• The Board has mandated the Database Committee to perform a prospective study on aortic dissection in 2008. This prospective registry could be a useful project for 2010. The Database Committee has provided all surgeons with data sheets, in order to register of all patients treated for aortic dissection between 1/6/2008 and 31/5/2009, with follow-up data at one year. Results, including 1 year follow-up should be available by the end of 2010. We strongly encourage everybody to participate.
  We hope that this clarifies the mailing from the Database Committee that most of you have received in the past months.
• In the mean time, the Database Committee is working on a voluntary registry of risk adjusted mortality with a 90-day follow-up. Last year, a small pilot multicentric study was presented in Ostende, revealing a 2,3% 30-day mortality for all coronary bypass surgery (elective, urgent and reanimation) in the 4 participating centers. Obviously, such type of studies can be very important to support our profession in comparison to our colleagues form the cardiology community.
• With all the activities in percutaneous valve techniques, a further extension of the registration for aortic valve replacement is currently under preparation within the Database Committee.

As I did last year, I would encourage all of you to spend a few minutes on the BACTS/CTSnet private webpage to verify the appropriateness of the available information on your background, field of interests, society membership and so forth.

You will find enclosed the current overview of both the Committee Rosters and the Membership Directory. This Directory is continuously updated. Please check your personal data and inform us in case they need correction.

New candidate members are invited to send their application form to :

Frank Van Praet
Chairman Membership Committee BACTS
Department of Cardiovascular & Thoracic Surgery
OLV Ziekenhuis
Moorselbaan 164
9300 Aalst

Applicants should use the official BACTS form available online and included.
The deadline for receipt of new applications is fixed on September 1, 2009.

14th Congress on Cardio-Thoracic Surgery

The 14th annual congress of the BACTS will take place at the Sodehotel-Woluwe on Saturday November 14th, 2009.
Abstracts for this year’s Congress are already welcome.

As discussed earlier in the introduction of this April 2009 Newsletter, the Scientific committee and the Board have both agreed on extending the presentation format to short video presentation and simultaneously to poster presentation for the abstract not selected for the oral session.

The deadline for receipt of abstracts is fixed on Saturday August 1th 2009.
Abstract submission should be done through the website.

Selected Abstract presenters will be informed by September 15th 2009.

Abstract prize and travel grants

1. Prize for the best abstract presented at the BACTS meeting (1000 Euro)

Abstracts are anonymously scored by the members of the scientific committee. The prize is given to the abstract with the highest score (allocated before the meeting).
The prize is a 1000 Euro prize.

2. Travel grant (5000 Euro)

For Belgian cardiothoracic residents or young surgeons
To spend 2 months in prestigious centers for cardio-thoracic surgery
(proposal by the candidate)
Application for such a travel grant should be addressed to the scientific committee (before September 2009). The application should consist of

• curriculum vitae
• a short letter explaining the goal of the training by the chairman of the department
• a short proposal concerning the intended centers to visit.

3. Funding of a fellow to attend either the Bergamo school (Cardiac/Thoracic) or the ESTS School (Thoracic). One fellowship support for each subspecialty (Two grants of approximately 900 Euro)

Application for this support should be addressed to the scientific committee. The application should consist of

• curriculum vitae of the candidate
• a short letter of the chairman of the department to support the application.

In case several application are made the scientific committee will give priority to the candidate with the better curriculum.

Note: The scientific committee is reached via the chairman:

Dr. A Poncelet
Chairman scientific committee BACTS
Department Cardiothoracic Surgery
Avenue Hippocrate 10
1200 Brussels

Bylaws

Finally, our new bylaws are published after approval on the special General Assembly in December 2006. Please take a look at the website www.bacts.org/sections/bylaws/index.html
The Board is currently working on the “internal rules and regulations”.

Specific competence in Cardiac Surgery

In 2007, the Belgian Surgical Commission of Recognition (Dutch and French speaking), the Belgian Professional Surgical Association, the Royal Belgian Surgical Society and the BACTS agreed to create a certificate, on proposition by the BACTS, to be signed by these 4 parties. This certificate of specific competence in cardiac surgery will not be signed by the Minister (on advice by the High Council). However, it will recognize the specific competence of cardiac surgeons as can be required by foreign or internal stake holders. We hope that the newly assembled Collegium Chirurgicum will support our goal to obtain an official certificate in the future.
The Accreditation Committee prepared guidelines for current and future Cardiac Surgeons.

Currently, the first 36 Belgian Cardiac Surgeons are approved by the Board, The commissions of Recognition and the Professional  Surgical Association. The last signature by the Royal Belgian Surgical Society is on its way. In a recent meeting, the BACTS Accreditation Committee approved 4 additional surgeons. We have the feeling that we are moving in the right direction with clear guidelines for future cardiac surgeons.

Please visit our website (http://www.bacts.org/committee/eacts/175) in the near future to prepare the necessary documents for your accreditation.

Database Committee

The new Database Committee has done an excellent work in finalizing the 2006 report, which is open to the public from this year on, and is near to complete the 2007 report that should be presented to the Board in the incoming weeks before being presented at the General Assembly of the November 2009 Meeting and than released on the website.

Center data are mailed to the head of the Departments. Members can download these reports. Please send your data concerning the year 2008 as soon as possible. As of June, full report has been received from 10 out of the 28 centers only.

On behalf of the Board of Directors 2007-2011