Welcome to the 2015 Annual Meeting

Dear colleagues and friends,

Welcome to the 2015 Congenital Cardiac Anesthesia Society (CCAS) 9th Annual Meeting – to be held will be held at the Arizona Biltmore Resort in Phoenix, Arizona on Thursday, March 12th. This luxury desert resort has been a coveted vacation site since 1929 and is the perfect place to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the CCAS. You can also register for the SPA/AAP Pediatric Anesthesiology 2015 Meeting (March 13 – 15) at the same venue.

This year’s program celebrates achievements in our field since the CCAS was founded in 2005. It also reflects our society’s mission: to advance the perioperative care of patients with congenital heart disease by promoting excellence in clinical care, education and research. We are excited to host a faculty of experts presenting the latest information and advances in congenital cardiac anesthesia, pediatric cardiology, congenital cardiac surgery and cardiovascular research.

As customary, the meeting will open with a basic science and clinical application session. This year we highlight normal and pathologic physiology of the right ventricle. The basic science lecture will review the mechanical interactions between the right and left ventricle and why these interactions change in malformed hearts. It will be followed by a clinical application lecture presenting a comprehensive review of current and novel management strategies for right heart failure. The next session consists of three presentations each addressing a different controversial topic regarding the management of congenital cardiac patients during pediatric cardiopulmonary bypass. The final morning session will be a special tribute to Congenital Cardiac Anesthesiology starting with a review of several of the most influential articles in our field and their impact on current practice. The second lecture will provide a historical look at the development of congenital cardiac anesthesiology as a sub-specialty.

The afternoon begins with oral presentations of the three highest scoring research abstracts.
Next, we emphasize the Congenital Cardiac Database and its key mission from a board perspective and from the anesthesia viewpoint. We will discuss the importance of multi-institutional and multi-specialty databases in advancing quality improvement and examine the anesthesia portion of the Congenital Cardiac Database – its development, its value in quality improvement and what we’ve learned. We continue with an in-depth review of the complex congenital malformation total anomalous pulmonary venous connections. A multidisciplinary team (cardiologist, surgeon and anesthesiologist) will discuss this challenging lesion. The program concludes with a poster viewing session and a discussion of selected research abstracts. At the end of the day, join us for a celebratory wine and cheese reception.

At this year’s meeting, you will have the opportunity to reinforce your knowledge base, learn new concepts and share ideas with others. Our outstanding faculty will present both scientific and clinical relevant information appealing to a wide range of practice experiences. Anesthesiologists and other health care professionals are encouraged to attend, whether you are exclusively involved in congenital heart disease or provide for pediatric or adult patients with cardiac issues on a less regular basis.

This program is the combined effort of several individuals who are passionate about congenital cardiac anesthesiology. It has also been crafted out of the formal and informal, highly valuable input that many of you have provided. My sincere thanks to the meeting co-chairs, Mark Twite and Scott Walker, for their hard work and innovative solutions. I also want to acknowledge the efforts of the CCAS Board of Directors, Kim Battle and others at our association management company (Ruggles Service Corporation). We are confident that that this year’s meeting will be intellectually stimulating and clinically applicable.

We look forward to celebrating with you. Enjoy the meeting!