By Ed Susman

BARCELONA, Spain – The key to stopping heart disease is to prevent it – and more than 20,000 cardiologists will focus on that aspect of treatment at the 2009 European Society of Cardiology meeting here.

“Prevention cannot be done by the doctor alone,” said Roberto Ferrari, MD, president of the ESC and professor of cardiology at the University of Ferrara, Italy. He appealed to doctors, patients and media to promote awareness of heart disease and beneficial changes in lifestyle.

“Avoid elevators, eat better food and stop smoking,” Dr. Ferrari said at the opening press briefing at the five-day meeting that may draw a total of more than 30,000 people – including industry representatives and allied health care professionals.

Roberto Ferrari, MD

He said that the attendance at the meeting, which could set a record for the ESC meeting was influenced by the fact that “Barcelona is a lovely city” and the quality of the scientific presentations.

New scientific data will highlight the meeting, said program chairman Fausto Pinto, MD, professor of cardiology at the University of Lisbon, Portugal. The program committee reviewed 9848 scientific abstracts for the meeting, selecting 4085 for presentation, mostly as posters. More than 700 studies were selected for oral presentations.

Although the meeting is based in Europe, presentations have a distinctly international flavor, Dr. Pinto said. More abstracts were accepted from Germany – 531 – than any other country, but Japanese researchers had 241 papers accepted, good enough for 6^th place, and 162 papers were accepted from United States scientists, ninth place.

Fausto Pinto, MD

Important new research will be presented in Hot Line sessions and in Clinical Trial Updates, Dr. Pinto said.

–08-29-2009