What's Hot in Cardiology beyond DES? Try Structural Heart Disease

The ever-increasing number of clinical conferences, particularly in cardiology, can sometimes take on a mind-numbing sameness as attendees sit through the presentation of still another patient subset of a drug-eluting stent (DES). What distinguishes the annual Summer in Seattle meeting is the Emerging Technologies Symposium held as part of the conference, at which future areas of interest within cardiology are identified and early-stage companies active in that space are given the opportunity to make presentations. Mark Reisman, MD, of Seattle's Swedish Medical Center, and William A. Gray, MD, of Columbia University Medical Center , the conference directors, have been successful in highlighting the next and the next-next areas of interest in cardiovascular medicine and have been able to attract very early-stage companies to discuss those areas, no small feat when it comes to device start-ups.

The fifth annual conference, held this July, highlighted a range of topics from vascular technologies such as bioabsorbable DES to...