At the joint annual meeting of the Swiss Society of Cardiology (SSC) and the Swiss Society of Cardiac and Vascular Thoracic Surgery, numerous prizes were awarded.
Professor Michel Haïssaguerre, one of the biggest players in the field of ablation, received the Andreas Grüntzig price and held the honorary Andreas Grüntzig lecture on the topic “From atrial to ventricular fibrillation: a long ongoing journey”.
Earlier, the SSC in its general assembly awarded five new honorary memberships to Andres Jaussi (president of the SSC 2006–2008 and ceaseless/tireless supporter of our society), Rolf Jenni (pioneer and promoter of echocardiography), René Lerch (president of the SSC 1998–2000, initiator of the Working Group on heart failure and editor in chief of Cardiovascular Medicine), Matthias Pfister (president of the SSC 1996–1998 and main investigator of many important Swiss multicenter trials), as well as Alberto Rhighetti (president of the SSC 1988–1990, major inputs in standardising training in cardiology).
The Scientific Research Prize of the Swiss Society of Cardiology was given to Benedikt Weber from Zurich for his work on foetal stem cells for heart valve tissue engineering. In the presentation of his research Dr Weber offered a fascinating insight into an area which sounds like fiction but which might become reality in a few years: the creation of individually fitted valves grown from human tissue.
The winner of the Scientific Prize of the Swiss Heart Foundation was
Giacomo Simonetti, a paediatric specialist from Bern. In his epidemiological research he was able to show that passive smoking is an independent risk factor for hypertension in children. His article “Determinants of blood pressure in preschool children: the role of parental smoking” was published in
Figure 1.
Professor Hans Rickli, Past President SSC, with Professor Michel Haïssaguerre who received the Andreas Grüntzig price, and Professor Dipen Shah from Geneva (from left to right).
Figure 1.
Professor Hans Rickli, Past President SSC, with Professor Michel Haïssaguerre who received the Andreas Grüntzig price, and Professor Dipen Shah from Geneva (from left to right).
“Therapeutische Umschau”.
Over 250 scientific abstracts were submitted to eight topics in 2012. Prizes were awarded to Erik Walter Holy (Baden) for his paper “Critical role for PI3K/p110alpha in arterial thrombosis and vascular smooth muscle cell activation: implications for drug-eluting stent design”, to Chan Il-Park (Geneva) for his work on “Adenosin-mediated Acute Pulmonary Vein reconnection occurs at regions of low Contact-Force-Time Integral – A Randomized Trial”, to Micha Maeder (St. Gallen) for “N-Terminal-B-Type Natriuretic Peptide-Guided Treatment in Patients with Heart Failure with Preserved versus Reduced Ejection Fraction – Insights”, to Vincent Braunersreuther (Geneva) for “Treatments with chemokine-binding protein Evasin-3 and -4 improve post-infarction myocardial injury and cardiac remodeling in mice”, to Andreas Schönenberger (Bern) for “Invasive Findings in Patients with Angina-Equivalent Symptoms but No Coronary Artery Disease; Results from the Heart Quest Cohort Study”, to Christine At-tenhofer Jost (Zürich) for “Cardiovascular findings and their impact on long-term outcome in 176 patients with Turner syndrome”, to Jan Vontobel (Baden) for “Ventricular septal defect originating from an apical left ventricular pseudoaneurysm” and to André Plass (Zürich) for ”Dual-Source Computertomography and Magnetic Resonance Perfusion Imaging may optimize Coronary Revascularisation”. This selection of prized abstracts shows the broad range of research in Switzerland, encompassing many important fields of research and supporting the necessity of meetings like our annual meeting, where possibilities to present and exchange are offered.
