It is very appropriate that AsiaIntervention is bringing out this special issue to mark the 9th INDIA LIVE being held in Chennai starting on 28 February 2018. The Interventional Cardiology Foundation of India (ICFI) named this journal the official journal of INDIA LIVE in 2017. This was followed by the Asia Pacific Society of Interventional Cardiology (APSIC) making it their scientific voice. The journal was planned by the thought leaders of this region to become a forum of high-quality research and education in the field of percutaneous and surgical cardiovascular interventions from the Asia-Pacific region.
This young journal is growing remarkably well and is becoming a forum for cardiologists who specialise in this area to publish their scientific data. As one of the Chief Editors of AsiaIntervention and one of the Course Directors of INDIA LIVE, it is a proud moment for me to introduce this issue to the interventional cardiologists of the region. We have articles from India, Japan, Singapore and other countries. Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) is finding an increasing space in the journal in line with what is happening all over the globe. Chronic total occlusion revascularisation, which has been a speciality of this part of the world, is also being addressed in the form of an interesting predictive model for success.
Contributions of India and INDIA LIVE
Interventional cardiologists of this region need to know that India has been a leader in the field of invasive cardiology in the entire Asia-Pacific Rim. Invasive cardiology began here in 1962 when Dr Sujoy Bhushan Roy set up the first laboratory and performed the first cardiac catheterisation in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. The department also helped start this speciality in several other countries including Singapore. Selective coronary angiography was initiated in India in the 1970s with the start of a coronary artery bypass programme in a few selected centres. With the advent of coronary angioplasty in Europe pioneered by Andreas Grüntzig in 1977 and its subsequent spread across Europe and America in the early 1980s, the numbers and centres started increasing. By April 1985 angioplasty programmes had started in a few cities in India, namely Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai. In order to have an audit of this new procedure, and also to disseminate teaching and training of the technique and selection of cases, a National PTCA Registry was started in India by the author, and regular scientific meetings were held twice a year. With the start of mitral balloon valvotomy in 1984 and other non-surgical therapies, the registry was expanded to become the National Interventional Council (NIC), a subsidiary of the Cardiology Society of India in 1985. The number of coronary procedures has continued to increase steadily from around 3,000 in 1992 in 103 centres to close to 500,000 in 2016 in approximately 1,000 centres – a substantial increase. The NIC has an annual meeting, highlighting live demonstrations, various teaching and academic aspects of coronary and non-coronary interventions, including the presentation of annual data.
It was in 2010 that INDIA LIVE was conceived by its five founding members, currently the Course Directors, under the banner of the Interventional Cardiology Foundation of India (ICFI). The aims were to showcase the strength of Indian interventional cardiologists and to hold an annual meeting along with thought leaders from all over the world with live demonstrations and targeted didactic presentations on various contemporary topics in the field of cardiovascular and structural heart disease. The course has become a popular regular international meeting held in February/March each year in New Delhi, Chennai or Mumbai, three of the well-known cities of India. Live cases of complex interventions both of coronary and structural heart disease with educative features, various imaging technologies, physiological basis of interventions and research papers from various investigators form the basis of the three days of deliberations. More than 2,000 cardiologists participate in this course annually. There are special sessions entitled “How to do”, “Meet the Experts”, “Complications and their management” and “Scientific paper presentations”. The scientific abstracts received for the meeting will be published in this special edition of AsiaIntervention. The best abstracts will be rewarded. Authors of these abstracts will then be invited to submit full manuscripts which, after peer review, could be published in future issues of the journal.
Interestingly, as a coincidence in the same year (2010), a renowned interventional meeting, EuroPCR (Paris Course on Revascularisation), chose to partner with the National Heart Centre Singapore (NHCS) to launch jointly the first AsiaPCR-SingLive, a cardiology conference, from 21 to 23 January 2010. Singapore Live was a course started by Dr Arthur Tan of the NHCS in 1989. The same course continued under Professor Koh Tian Hai until the partnership with EuroPCR began in 2010. There is a special session of INDIA LIVE at these meetings.
The way ahead
The goal of the journal is to provide an opportunity to the interventional cardiologists of the Asia-Pacific region to publish scientific material highlighting the techniques and innovations developed by them. For this, we require the support of our colleagues in India and neighbouring countries to submit their work to the journal which is owned by all of us. It is we who are going to be responsible for maintaining its academic standards and bringing it up to par with already well-established international journals. The editorial board plans to assist those who want help in writing their manuscripts or wish to improve their paper-writing skills by connecting them with the appropriate professionals.
We remain committed to the quality, excellence and showcasing of the strengths of academics and research in the Asia-Pacific region and solicit participation from all of you to contribute to the growth of this young and upcoming journal in whatever way possible.