Heart Rhythm 2024 -Highlights 

The Heart Rhythm Society's annual meeting is one of the main events for rhythmotologists in the year. Prof. Chung speaks about what to expect on-site. 

HERZMEDIZIN: As the program chair of Heart Rhythm 2024, what will be the program highlights of this year’s conference?

Chung: This year's convention officially kicks off with participation in the Opening Plenary on Friday, May 17, at 8:30 a.m. A lineup of outstanding speakers, including local special guests, HRS executives and keynote speaker Jagmeet P. Singh, MD, PhD, FHRS, who will discuss artificial intelligence, its revolutionary impact on the field of EP and how it will potentially reshape traditional approaches to rhythm management. We will also have late breaking sessions as well hands-on workshops.

Already starting today we will have the Africa Summit, the PFA Live Case Summit and a 3,5 hour session on Women in EP. We will also be looking at the challenges related to sudden cardiac arrest. In the Friday's session "Vision of the future", we will talk about how we can identify and treat the vast majority of patients who have sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) but who are not identified ahead of time as being candidates for preventive therapies or who lack access to care. Novel approaches, including identification of cardiac arrest using connected devices and drone-delivered AEDs, will be discussed, focusing the debate on what needs to be done to reduce the occurrence of and improve the poor outcomes.

HERZMEDIZIN: The conference’s claim is: Bringing the world of EP together. Which sessions have a particular focus on sharing international thoughts on the newest science? 

Chung: Among the many sessions that are simultaneously translated and where speakers come from all around the world, a particular highlight will be The Africa Summit, where discussions and numerous presentations by various speakers from Africa will take place and  participants will explore clinical (e.g. recurrent disease, epidemiology of cardiac arrhythmias, common risk factors, etc.) and health policy (e.g. access to care, pharmacological/non-pharmacological therapies, reimbursements, etc.) from a global, socio-economic and political perspective. An additional focus will be on infrastructure and industry support.

HERZMEDIZIN: We have just covered the EHRA congress in Berlin last month. What updates can we expect in Boston?

Chung: We will have five late breaking clinical trial sessions on ablation, Cardiovascular Implantable Electronic Devices (CIEDs) and innovation. We will have sessions on leadless devices, a lot coming out there as well in addition to what was presented in Europe. We also have studies from big, randomized trials, for example on device detected atrial fibrillation. 

HERZMEDIZIN: You mentioned the keynote will be on AI. What are your personal experiences with AI so far?

Chung: I'm going to use some AI machine learning methods to work on studying atrial fibrillation. I'm going to use a link with genomics and omics to identify new targets and drugs as well as on atrial emitting in patients undergoing atrial fibrillation. But there's a lot of hope for the future in applying this to clinical practice, and that includes incorporating AI algorithms for detection of sudden cardiac arrest on helping us in the clinics with the vast amount of data that are coming to us from various sources, including remote monitoring.

HERZMEDIZIN: And last but not least, as the president of HRS, what are the most challenging tasks ahead for this year for 2024, and what plans does the society have to tackle them?

Chung: We want to address the needs of our global EP community and our societies, including the German Society of Cardiology. Identifying and trying to help with, for example disparities in care, is part of our core work. So I think advocacy is one of the key pillars of our strategic plan, and that covers not just the United States, but applies globally as well. And we also have education and innovation pillars as part of our strategy that we hope to cover and assist with throughout the world.

About Heart Rhythm 2024

The Heart Rhythm Society's annual Heart Rhythm meeting convenes 8.400+ of the world’s finest clinicians, scientists, researchers, and innovators in the field of cardiac pacing and electrophysiology. More than 700 international experts in the field will serve as faculty for the 200+ educational sessions, forums, symposia, and ceremonies, while 100+ exhibitors will showcase innovative products and services. Most sessions will take place on-site only. Herzmedizin.de will report on selected topics during the event.