Dear BACTS member,
I hope that all of us had rewarding summer holidays that should have provided us with fresh energy in our professional and family lives.
It is with pleasure that I write to you on behalf of the whole Board to update you on the ongoing activities and issues of our society.
Let me first invite you all cordially to our upcoming yearly scientific meeting on November 19th, 2011 in Sodehotel La Woluwe. In the coming days the final very promising program will be posted to you. After the General Assembly and report of the database committee the scientific part will start with the presentation of the selected abstracts. We are proud to announce that we have two invited international lecturers: Prof. S. Hoerstrup (Bio-engeneering in cardio-vascular medicine) and Dr. J. Long (State of the art in LVAD implantation: a focus on Destination therapy). We are looking forward to seeing you all there!
BACTS candidature Board membership:
On August 18th, 2011 an e-mail was sent to all the members asking for new candidates for the Board. Let me repeat this urgent request.
The term of the whole present Board is ending at the next General Assembly of the BACTS, immediately preceding the scientific congress. A new Board will therefore be elected during this General Assembly.
Requirements according to the bylaws to be candidate Board member are:
- Full member of BACTS
- Living in Belgium
- Being professionally active at least partially in Belgium
The Board normally convenes 5 or 6 times a year. Furthermore, active participation in committees or working groups, meetings with other scientific organizations, ministries, RIZIV/INAMI are to be expected. Preferably, Dutch and French speaking surgeons, university and non-university, and thoracic and cardiac surgeons are represented in the Board, proportional to their numbers present in the BACTS.
If you would like to run for Board membership please send your candidacy with the following data to the secretary of the BACTS (paul.herijgers@uzleuven.be) before 30 September 2011.
- Name
- All given names (first and middle)
- Date of birth
- Place of birth
- Official (home) address
- National number (see backside of ID card, starting with inverse date of birth)
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.
The winner will be announced at the scientific meeting.
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).
If the Board decides that there are appropriate candidates, the winner will also be announced at the scientific meeting.
As announced during previous years in the newsletters, application for such a travel grant should be addressed to the scientific committee (before September 1st of the running year). 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
Reïmbursement of Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation (TAVI)
The slightly adapted version of the position statement of the BACTS on TAVI, according to the publication of results of the cohort B of the Partner Trial, were approved by the Board in December 2010 and are available at the BACTS website.
A working group has been put together consisting of 4 delegates from the BACTS, 4 cardiologists and people from the industry and UNAMEC. Over the last year this group convened several times in an attempt to push the RIZIV/INAMI towards some reimbursement, since Belgium remains the only country amid our neighbours without any financial regulation. This group tried to advise the authorities on how to set up a rational and fair regulation of such a possible reimbursement giving them scientific data from our national and complete TAVI registration. We tried to get a reimbursement in category five, this means a restricted number of devices (as high as possible), in probably selected centers under strict registration of outcome data.
Although we had the impression that the Mutualities were in favour to accept some reimbursement, the RIZIV however, before taking any decisions, asked just before summer the KCE to produce a new report on TAVI including financial cost-effectiveness data. This report should come out during the second half of this September.
We hope that the result will be favourable for the authorities within the RIZI/INAMI, so that they can soon work out a final reimbursement strategy with the 5 million euro’s they seemingly have foreseen in their budget (260 devices?)
Reïmbursement of surgical concommittant Atrial Fibrillation treatment
In February 2011 the BACTS organized a very interesting scientific meeting on State of the Art treatment of atrial fibrillation at the Grand Place in Brussels. National and international speakers made the event very successful. The main purpose of this meeting however was to motivate the authorities to finally work out a reimbursement strategy, an item which had been on the agenda of the Technical Council for Implants of the RIZIV/INAMI for so many years without any real progress so far.
After many meetings and a lot of discussions this Council decided finally that a reïmbursement will be proposed for 600 devices on a “first come-first served” basis, including a strict registration protocol. Pierre Yves Etienne and Ivo Deblier are now our representatives in this Technical Council for Implants. The BACTS decided to organize the data collection within it’s own database and by the database committee, in the first stage independent from the cardiological (BEHRA) data collection.
This will give us the opportunity to optimally control the data and their analysis. Afterwards data can always be put together with cardiological data if we decide to do so.
This matter now has to be approved within the administration of the authorities. This may take some more time, but the final decision seems to be on it’s way now.
College of Cardiac Surgery
A partially renewed college has been appointed by the Ministry. The new chairman is Philippe Kolh, the new vice-chairman is Guido Van Nooten. The other members are Ivo Deblier, Bart Meuris, Pierre Yves Etienne and Christiaan Van Kerrebroeck.
The 2010 report for the Ministry will consist of the activity report 2008 and the aortic dissection study. The latter will be presented at the upcoming scientific meeting in November.
The 2011 project concerns the implementation of the new data registry in addition to the usual database report.
Database Committee
The committee is working hard on finalizing the 2009 annual report.
The report of the Aortic dissection study is finished. The results will be presented at our scientific meeting and slides will be available on the website.
The database committee is working on the new dataset for the Atrial fibrillation registry. (see above)
Memory of understanding (MOU)
A new MOU has been thoroughly discussed with the Board over the last months. The old version had to be adapted in the light of the upcoming change of data required in the new reporting including outcome data. The issue of responsibility of the database committee when a significant outlier would be identified will be presented at the meeting in November during the General Assembly.
The Board members agree with the new text which will be e-mailed to all members together with the papers of the general assembly.
BACTS participation at the Belgian Surgical week May 2011
This year the BACTS session took place on Thursday afternoon which seemed to bring in more people (20-30 including residents in training) than on the usual Saturday morning. During the cardiac and the thoracic part (VATS lobectomy) of the meeting many questions came from the audience and made the session quite interactive.
The Board will have to brainstorm on further opportunities to make the meeting more attractive.
ESC/EACTS guidelines on myocardial revascularisation
The Board decided to endorse the guidelines and has communicated this to the EACTS and ESC in order to have this announced at their respective websites.
Dear colleagues,
All those and other issues that concern all of us will be presented again at our next November meeting in SodeHotel La Woluwe. Please be present that day since this is as we all know a wonderful occasion for networking, social updating and possibly for building or reinforcing friendships.
See you all in November 19th!
Frank Van Praet
President BACTS 2009-2011