Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (SCCT) Sets Stage for 18th Annual Scientific Meeting, SCCT 2023

July  20, 2023 — The Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (SCCT) is preparing for its 18th Annual Scientific Meeting, SCCT 2023, being held July 27-30 in Boston, MA. Planners with the Arlington, VA-based Society report that the event is designed to engage physicians, trainees, technologists and healthcare professionals in a complete overview of the cardiovascular CT field. Planned sessions targeted for all levels, new practitioners and experienced providers alike, will range from general overviews to state-of-the-art research and expert discussions.

Focus areas and program highlights include structural heart disease, congenital heart disease, guidelines and trials, AI/Machine learning, technical aspects of cardiac CT, coronary artery disease, valvular heart disease, debates and games and early career topics.

Thursday, July 27

Day one of the SCCT 2023 meeting kicks off with registration and an afternoon session, “Starting a CT service in a variety of practice settings,” which will be chaired by Christopher Maroules, MD, FSCCT, and Ronald Karlsberg, MD, FSCCT. Seven presentations will be followed by a panel discussion. Shortly after, a session on “Business aspects of cardiac CT 101” will be held, chaired by Kanae Mukai, MD and Ronald Karlsberg, MD, FSCCT. A panel discussion will follow six short presentations on a range of related issues.

Friday, July 28

The Scientific Sessions begin the morning of day two. The Opening Session will feature a welcome address from SCCT 2022-2023 President and SCCT 2023 Chair Brian Ghoshhajra, MD, MBA, MSCCT. Ghoshhajra is the Massachusetts General Hospital Division Chief, Cardiovascular Imaging, Department of Radiology, and Associate Professor of Radiology, Harvard Medical School.

Co-chair for the 18th Annual Scientific Meeting, and incoming 2023-2024 SCCT President is Ed Nicol, MD, MBA, FSCCT. Nichol is a Royal Air Force consultant cardiologist who works as an honorary consultant at both the Royal Brompton and Chelsea & Westminster Hospitals. He is an honorary senior lecturer at both Imperial College, London (Cardiology) and Keele University (Healthcare Leadership) where he gained his Doctorate and MBA respectively. He has published over 120 original papers, book chapters and a book covering cardiovascular CT, cardiology, military and aviation medicine, and healthcare leadership.

Also on July 28, SCCT will present the Top 5 Cardiology Papers, to be announced by Armin Zadeh, MD, PhD, MPH, MSCCT, Director, Cardiac Computed Tomography and Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Award Presentations

A range of prestigious awards and honors will be presented during the Opening Session.

The Agatston Award, to be awarded by Arthur Agatston, MD, FSCCT, will be presented to Martha Gulati, MD, MS, Smidt Heart Institute Director of Preventive Cardiology, associate director of the Preventive and Rehabilitative Cardiac Center, and associate director of the Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center in the Department of Cardiology.

Achenbach Pioneer Award presented by SCCT President Ghoshhajra to Thomas G. Flohr, PhD and Willi Kalender, MD, PhD.

Flohr is head of CT Physics, Application Predevelopment and Global Clinical Collaborations at Siemens Healthineers in Forchheim, Germany, and adjunct professor for Medical Physics at Eberhard-Karls-University Tuebingen. Kalender is a professor and former chairman of the Institute of Medical Physics at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany, and is acknowledged as a leading authority in the field of CT imaging.

Gold Medal Award presented by Nichol to J. Jeffrey Carr, MD, MSc, MSCCT, who is the Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Radiology and Radiological Sciences and Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Cardiovascular Medicine.

The SCCT Clinical Trials and Registries Award, supported by Cleerly, Inc., will be presented to Daniel Jones, MD, PhD, Consultant Cardiologist, St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and Clinical Senior Lecturer, Queen Mary University of London for “The effect of CTCA guided selective bypass graft assessment on coronary angiographic parameters and outcomes: A sub-study of the BYPASS-CTCA Study.” Commentary on SCCT Clinical Trials and Registries Award will be offered by John Lesser, MD, MSCCT.

Keynote Address

The SCCT 2023 Opening Session Keynote will be “Random Acts of Medicine,” presented by Anupam B. Jena, MD, PhD. Jena is the Joseph P. Newhouse Professor of Health Care Policy, Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School; Professor of Medicine and Associate Physician in the Department of Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is also a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is the author of “Random Acts of Medicine: The Hidden Forces that Sway Doctors, Impact Patients, and Shape Our Health” (Random House 2023), with co-author Christopher Worsham, MD, MPH, Teaching Associate, Division of Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Jena is also host of the Freakonomics, MD podcast, which explores the “hidden side of health care.”

A Women in CT Reception will take place Thursday evening.

The Exhibit Hall hours during SCCT 2023 are as follows: Friday, July 28 from 9:00 a.m. – 11:45 p.m. and 12:45 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.; and Saturday, July 29, from 9:00 a.m. to noon, and 1:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.

Saturday, July 29

The SCCT Business Meeting will take place Saturday morning, followed by a host of scientific sessions.

Of the multiple sessions in the morning and afternoon, here is a summary of two:

“A catch up and update in clinical guidelines and expert consensus documents” will including the following:

“Use of Coronary Computed Tomographic Angiography for Patients Presenting with Acute Chest Pain to the Emergency Department” by Kavitha Chinnaiyan, MD, MSCCT

Cardiac CT in chronic coronary artery disease, from Stephan Achenbach, MD, MSCCT

Guidelines: Bias and its effect. Where everyone is equal but some are more equal than others, by Martha Gulati, MD, MS

“Do guidelines actually make a difference?” by Jonathan Weir-McCall, MBChB, PhD

AI and CCT: The future and reality in practice, with sessions and panel discussions, chaired by Andrew Choi, MD, FSCCT and Maros Ferencik, MD, PhD, MCR, MSCCT.

The double-edged sword of AI by Brian Ghoshhajra, MD, MBA, MSCCT

Technical integration and real-world application by Marly van Assen, MSc, PhD, Emory University School of Medicine

Ethics and legal challenges: How AI is reshaping clinical practice by Tessa Cook, MD, PhD, Penn Medicine

AI and economics: Who pays for the future? by Ronen Rubinshtein, MD, Heart Institute at Edith Wolfson Medical Center

The new doctor-patient-imager relationship: Where does AI fit? by Michelle Williams, MBChB, PhD, FRCR, FSCCT, University of Edinburgh

Additional break out session focus topics include, but are not limited to:

• Vascular CTA: The essentials
• Hands-on CCT: Learn how to troubleshoot!
• The comprehensive CCT program
• Role of CT imaging in common congenital heart diseases: A practical overview

Also on Saturday, the Young Investigator Award abstract presentations will take place, with recognition of the Best Abstract & Young Investigator Awards (YIA) at 5:15 p.m.

Sunday, July 30

Morning sessions on the final day of SCCT 2023 will offer four major sessions including a total of 19 presentations, from “AI and CCT: Looking broadly and looking forward,” chaired by Ed Nicol, MD, MBA, FSCCT and Jill Jacobs, MD, MS-HQSM, MPH, PhD, FSCCT to “Cardiac CT Reporting in 2023: What really matters?” as well as “Technical advances in coronary atherosclerosis imaging,” chaired by Pamela Woodard, MD, MSCCT and Michelle Williams, MBChB, PhD, FRCR, FSCCT.

The Closing Session featuring take home points and meeting highlights will be led by Brian Ghoshhajra, MD, MBA, MSCCT, with the closing keynote to be presented by Michael Zalis, MD, Cardiovascular & Interventional Radiology, Interventional Radiology, MGH, and Director, MGB Radiology Center for Sustainability.

The Presidential Transition and Incoming President Address by Ed Nicol, MD, MBA, FSCCT.

The Society noted that 16 CME credits are available for the live in-person sessions, and 28.5 additional credits may be earned by viewing the recorded content following the event. The Society of Cardiovascular Computer Tomography is accredited by the

Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

More information: www.scct.org

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