VAM 2025, THE NOLA edition, is here and the first day’s schedule is jam-packed with scientific and educational content. Registration is open from 6 a.m.–5 p.m.
The Vascular Quality Initiative (VQI) Annual Meeting (8 a.m.–5 p.m.) continues after its own opening day yesterday. The VAM Opening Ceremony moderated by SVS President Matthew Eagleton, MD, and Program Committee Chair Jason Lee, MD—takes place at 8 a.m. followed by the William J. von Liebig Forum (8:10 a.m.), which includes the James S.T. Yao Resident Research Award paper at 9:24 a.m..
The E. Stanley Crawford Critical Issues Forum starts at 11:15 a.m., and, at 12:30 p.m., the World Federation of Vascular Societies Educational Session takes place.
Touchpoint@VAM, featuring technology from a host of industry leaders, starts at 1 p.m. and runs through 5 p.m.
Later in the afternoon, a series of four VESS Scientific Sessions starts at 1:30 p.m., as does the My Worst Cases session, while the Vascular Education Summit: A Referendum on the Current State of Vascular Training in the U.S., commences at 3:15 p.m.
The schedule is rounded off by the latest in the SVS Keynote Speaker Series, this year delivered by legendary goaltender Jim Craig (pictured below) of “Miracle on Ice” Olympic hockey glory (5 p.m.). That will be the cue for the first VAM social gathering SVS Connect@VAM: Welcome to New Orleans (5:45 p.m.).
Check out the schedule and the locations of all VAM activities on p. 8.
Empowering vascular surgeons
2 Resident award
Targeting highly complex process of calcification
4 Welcome to VAM A message from the SVS President
6 VTE
Evolving landscape of interventions for PE
8 VAM schedule Get the lowdown on opening day events
13 Vascular injury Imaging choice and aortic trauma
This year’s E. Stanley Crawford Critical Issues Forum at VAM 2025 (11:15 a.m.–12:15 p.m.) on the Morial Convention Center’s First Floor (Great Hall A) seeks to address some of the structural and economic issues facing vascular surgeons as individuals—and those that challenge the specialty as an entity.
By Bryan Kay
EMPOWERING VASCULAR SURGEONS ACROSS all fronts—professional, financial and emotional— while addressing some of the over-arching issues faced by the vascular surgical specialty underpin the aim of this year’s Crawford Forum, SVS President-Elect Keith Calligaro tells VS@VAM ahead of VAM 2025.
Calligaro has a assembled a panel of four leading vascular surgeons to tackle some of the hottest topics of the day that speak to how vascular surgery is structured in hospitals and medical centers, as well as how vascular surgeons are reimbursed and organized.
“Fundamentally, we want to inform our SVS members what they can do to become better positioned with their hospital administrations and compared to other specialties, so that we are in a better position to take care of our patients for ourselves,” says the chief of vascular surgery at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, who as the incoming SVS president is responsible for organizing the forum.
First speaker Malachi Sheahan III, MD, chair of surgery at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, is set to address one of the thorniest topics: the issue of heart and vascular centers and vascular surgery’s position within them.
“He is going to ask, ‘Are heart and vascular centers beneficial to vascular surgeons?’, explore issues around the fact that when you combine a heart and
a vascular center, most of the finances and effort go to the heart center, not really to the vascular center,” explains Calligaro. “So, his point, and what I think the audience should question is, should hospitals promote a vascular center independent of a heart center, and would that empower vascular surgeons to hopefully get more funding?”
There is also a marketing dimension to the heart and vascular center question, Calligaro says: “You don’t want vascular patients going to a heart and vascular center to be seen by a heart specialist when they should be seen by a vascular specialist.”
Similarly, next at the podium, Faisal Aziz, MD, the chief of vascular surgery at Penn State University in Hershey, Pennsylvania, will contemplate the position
“ Vascular surgeons need to consider all reasonable strategies to empower themselves”
KEITH CALLIGAR0
Award-winning basic science research targets ‘highly complex’ process of vascular calcification’
“WE WERE REALLY EXCITED TO KNOW that the SVS is supporting our research,” Sujin Lee, MD, tells VS@VAM on receiving the James S.T. Yao Resident Research Award for a paper examining the role of the FNDC1 protein in vascular calcification.
Lee, a vascular surgery resident at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, is set to present the paper—“FNDC1 is implicated in small- and large-vessel arterial disease and induces vascular calcification via PI3K/AKT signaling and the nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide [NAD] salvage pathway”—during today’s William J. von Liebig Forum (8:10–9:45 a.m., First Floor, Great Hall A).
The focus of the research project, which Lee notes has spanned over three years, is the “highly complex and active pathobiological process” that is vascular calcification. Despite its prevalence in vascular surgery patients, Lee highlights that there are currently no therapies that directly target vascular calcification—a gap in the literature that she and colleagues hope to address.
“The goal of this project was to really understand the mechanisms behind vascular calcification,” Lee says. “We wanted to look at the convergence between small and large vessel calcification to determine the
molecular pathways that drive the phenotypic change of vascular smooth muscle cells to bone-like cells.”
To do so, Lee explains that the research team looked at two different models of vascular calcification: calciphylaxis (to model small-vessel disease) and coronary artery disease (to model large-vessel disease).
further network analyses.
Summarizing this part of the study, Lee outlines that there are two major pathways that FNDC1 might be activating to induce vascular calcification: the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway and the NAD biosynthesis pathway, “which deals with metabolic reprogramming of the cell.”
Lee continues: “We did human transcriptomic studies to look at the differentially expressed transcriptomes and the different pathways that are perturbed in the disease state for both of these disorders of vascular calcification.”
Subsequently, Lee shares that the top 10 upregulated genes in each of the two disease states were validated at the protein level on immunofluorescent staining.
“We were able to narrow down that list to one protein, which is FNDC1, or fibronectin type III domain-containing protein 1,” Lee says, going on to note that knockdown and overexpression experiments using vascular smooth muscle cells demonstrated that FNDC1 was necessary to induce the calcific phenotype switch of smooth muscle cells in vascular calcification. She then looked at the mechanism of action before conducting
FROM THE COVER THE CRAWFORD FORUM: EMPOWERING VASCULAR SURGEONS
continued from page 1
of departments of vascular surgery in both academic and community hospital settings, ultimately asking, ‘Are they worth fighting for?’
“There are probably some positives and negatives to having a vascular surgery department as opposed to a division,” Calligaro continues. “A division is part of an overall Department of Surgery, but if you can form your own independent Department of Vascular Surgery, the big advantage is you don’t have to necessarily answer to a different chair. You don’t have to go to conferences that are not beneficial to vascular trainees or to vascular staff. You are in charge of your own financials, which hopefully would benefit your own staff. It’s more a matter of establishing vascular as its own specialty, as opposed to being part of an overall department of surgery.”
Shifting gears to matters related to vascular surgery compensation, next speaker Sunita Srivastava, MD, assistant professor of surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, is set to address how vascular surgeons can attain fair financial reimbursement
From a marketing and fair compensation perspective. Her talk, based on a report of the SVS Population Health Task Force, addresses outside pressures impacting fair compensation.
Furthermore, Lee notes that the genetic deletion of FNDC1 attenuated aortic calcification and improved survival in two mouse models of vascular calcification. The researchers also found that the administration of a small molecule inhibitor of one of the downstream targets of FNDC1 protected against calcification, which Lee states are promising results for a potentially new therapy targeting calcification in humans.
Finally, Lee reports that the team conducted a further study using the UK Biobank to assess whether FNDC1 can be used as a biomarker in both calciphylaxis and coronary disease in large human cohort studies. “There were 43,000 patients within the UK Biobank that seemed to have an association between FNDC1 and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality,” Lee reveals.Beyond the research that will be presented at VAM, Lee details that the next step is to “continue to build on our understanding of the mechanisms of vascular calcification and to ultimately develop a therapy.” —Jocelyn Hudson
FROM THE EDITOR A New Orleanian’s guide to New Orleans
WELCOME! OUR CITY IS HUMID, crumbling and vaguely supernatural. Make the right choices and you will never forget your time here. Double that if you make the wrong ones. Here are some personal favorites.
Restaurants: Lilette, Clancy’s, Paladar 511 and Jacques-Imo’s are essential. Can’t go wrong with Atchafalaya, Shaya or Commander’s Palace. In Treme, visit Dooky Chase’s, where the late Leah Chase once fed Martin Luther King Jr. and the Freedom Riders. Nearby, Willie Mae’s Scotch House also serves world-class fried chicken. In the Warehouse District, Peche is chef Donald Link’s seafoodfocused flagship.
Bars: Napoleon House is an authentic, old-school experience. Order the Pimm’s Cup. Bacchanal Wine is a backyard bottle shop slash live-music sanctuary. Cure and Jewel of the South are excellent upscale options. Columns and the Elysian are also superb. Los Jefes, Pat O’Briens and Tchoup Yard are affordable alternatives where you are likely (regrettably) to encounter an LSU vascular resident.
ing. But the reimbursements stay flat. The rent has been rising. But the reimbursements stay flat. The bottom line is vascular surgeons almost certainly make less from an overall standpoint than they did 20 years ago, and that’s what she’ll be addressing.”
Last up, Enrico Ascher, MD, professor of surgery at New York University in New York City and CEO of the Vascular Institute of New York, will tackle the question of potential unionization, asking, ‘How can vascular surgeons unionize when 95% of payments come from Medicare?’
“One of the issues is that inflation has been steadily rising, as has the cost of living, but reimbursements for vascular surgeons have remained the same over the last 20 years or so,” says Calligaro. “But we are still expected to put in the long hours and come in for emergency cases at night and at weekends, and be available 24 hours a day to bail out other surgeons when they get into a vascular complication. The cost of supplies is increasing if you have an outpatient, office-based lab. But the reimbursements have stayed flat. The salaries for your staff have been ris-
“That’s very debatable,” Calligaro considers. “There’s a lot of reasons not to do so. One of the biggest problems—and that’s why it’s in the title—is what is the benefit of forming a union, and how can you form a union when the vast of majority of payments comes from Medicare. You can’t form a union against Medicare. He’s going to address ways to potentially get around that, how to do it, should we do it, what are the benefits of doing it, and, in the end, will it give vascular surgery either more independence, help us financially, or help us legally from the likes of malpractice lawsuits. He is going to look into whether it is worth it for vascular surgeons to join up with other surgeons or even all other physicians to form a union, which is where it gets really complicated because everyone has their own interests. It is something he has been a champion of, but whether or not it is going to be realistic is going to be a question.”
Uniting all of the topics is their focus on helping vascular surgeons achieve the ultimate aim, Calligaro adds: “All four of these things can address better patient care and better patient outcomes. Vascular surgeons need to consider all reasonable strategies to empower themselves to provide better care for their patients and to optimally position themselves when dealing with hospital administrators.”
The Posh Corner for Fancy People, (sponsored by Sam Money and Claudie Sheahan) Shopping: Magazine Street between Octavia and Nashville, also between Washington and Napoleon. And Sak’s, of course. Dining: Emeril’s and Doris Metropolitan. Drinks: Hotel St. Vincent.
Kids: National WWII Museum (all ages really), the Cool Zoo, Honey Island Swamp Tours, and the aquarium. Some of the Haunted History tours are appropriate for older kids. Are the stories true? My wife seems to think so.
Art: New Orleans Museum of Art for looking, Terrance Osborne and Studio Be for buying. MS Rau is like a museum with price tags (ask for a tour, pretend a vascular surgeon could afford that Monet). Julia Street is nearby and packed with art galleries.
Music: Preservation Hall—no frills, no booze, no amplification. It’s jazz church. Also check the schedule at Tipitina’s or visit Frenchmen Street. The music is good everywhere, except for Bourbon St., which is for drunk tourists. I’ll let you self-select.
Exercise: There are running paths in Audubon Park and along the levee… oh settle down Prefontaine. It’s hot as hell, get your butt inside and drink and eat with the rest of us.
Sujin Lee
Malachi Sheahan III
From top: Keith Calligaro, Malachi Sheahan III, Faisal Aziz, Sunita Srivastava and Enrico Ascher
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A MESSAGE FROM THE SVS PRESIDENT
Dear colleagues and friends,
AS WE COME TOGETHER FOR VAM 2025, I want to take a moment to reflect on the remarkable progress we’ve made over the past year and to thank each of you for your dedication to our shared mission.
This past year has been one of bold action, strategic growth and meaningful impact. With the guidance of our SVS Executive and Strategic boards, and the tireless efforts of more than 560 volunteers across over 40 committees, taskforces, and writing groups, we’ve continued to advance the Society’s vision in powerful ways.
A key milestone was the expansion of our Executive Board from nine to 11 members, including five new at-large positions. This restructuring enhances our ability to respond to the evolving needs of our profession and ensures broader representation across our increasingly diverse membership.
Among our most visible accomplishments was the launch of the Highway to Health national branding campaign. This initiative in-
troduced vascular surgery to the public with unprecedented reach: over 1.5 billion media impressions and over 3,500 placements since in launch last October.. It also brought to life our new patient-facing website, YourVascularHealth.org, a vital tool for education and outreach.
In advocacy, the SVS remained a strong and consistent voice in Washington. We engaged in critical conversations around physician payment reform, Centers for Medi care and Medicaid Services (CMS) fee schedules and legislation impacting both providers and patients. I en courage you to join us this Septem ber for our inaugural SVS Advocacy Conference in Washington, D.C., where we will continue to shape the future of vascular care together.
Our commitment to quality and innovation remains a cornerstone
What the cost of cancer care teaches vascular specialists
HOW DOES THE COST OF TREATING CRITICAL limb-threatening ischemia (CLTI) in the U.S. stack up to cancer care? That was the question at the heart of research conducted by Richard W. Walsh, MD, and colleagues at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, Texas, to be presented during Plenary 2, Wednesday (10:20–11:15 a.m.) on the First Floor (Great Hall A). Ahead of the presentation, Walsh spoke to VS@ VAM to unpack the findings and how he believes they could hold important lessons for vascular care.
VS: What is the background to the research?
CLTI is a severe disease that is complicated by multiple medical comorbidities, each of which add cost for patients. These typically require multiple operations and reoperations over the course of a progressively debilitating disease, culminating in either limb salvage, amputation or eventual death.
On the other hand, we have seen how multidisciplinary care, research and targeted interventions have improved cancer survival and likely cost over time. The top four cancers in the U.S. are well studied and have strong data-driven treatment plans for most scenarios, offering a juxtaposition to CLTI patients, whose treatments can be highly provider, patient and region dependent. Comparing the costs of these two very different treatment approaches serves to illustrate the severity of CLTI costs, using cancer costs as a benchmark.
of our work. The Vascular Quality Initiative (VQI) continues to lead nationally in data-driven improvement. We celebrated the first community hospital verification through the Vascular Verification Program, and we launched a new Advanced Practice Provider Task Force to explore collaborative care models.
We also reaffirmed our commitment to outpatient and office-based care. The newly renamed Section on Ambulatory Vascular Care (SAVC) released the OBL Handbook, a valuable resource for our members.
As the pace of change accelerates, so too must our strategy. We are committed to evolving the Society to meet new challenges and seize emerging opportunities. Every dollar contributed, through dues, donations, or program support, helps us do just that. Your support is not only appreciated, it is essential. Our membership continues to grow and diversify, now approaching 6,400 strong. The creation of the Young Surgeons Section (YSS) has energized early-career engagement, while the newly approved Senior Section ensures continued value and connection for our later-career members.
We also launched a new and improved VascuLEARN platform, offering accessible webinars, micro-learning, and short videos, an online hub for vas-
cular education that has already served over 1,300 learners in the past three years.
In publishing, we reached a major milestone: the Journal of Vascular Surgery-Vascular Science (JVS-VS) has been indexed and will now carry an Impact Factor, thanks to the leadership of Dr. Alan Dardik, Tyler Cosgrove and our partners at Elsevier.
Finally, our Voices of Vascular campaign celebrated the stories of an assortment of stand-out SVS members, and our community came together to fund a new Vascular Care for the Underserved (VC4U) grant, which supports innovative solutions for populations affected by peripheral arterial disease (PAD). These achievements are a testament to the strength of our community. They reflect your dedication, your expertise and your belief in the power of collective action. As we celebrate our progress and look ahead, I am inspired by what we can accomplish together.
Thank you for being part of this journey. I look forward to the conversations, collaborations and innovations that will emerge from this year’s meeting.
With gratitude and respect,
Matthew Eagleton, MD, DFSVS SVS President
VS: What were your findings?
Within the limitations of the study, based on available data published on cancer and CLTI within the U.S., the annual per capita cost of CLTI was greater than the top four cancers—breast, prostate, colorectal and lung—in various stages, with multiple factors that increase this including medical comorbidities. Our manuscript references how renal or cardiac complications add a $11–20,000 price tag to any hospitalization.
VS: What do you expect is driving this?
CLTI is a chronic, uncurable disease with patients requiring multiple interventions, operations and reoperations. As endovascular approaches improve and innovate, these new technologies likely bring an increased element of expense. The latest peer-reviewed data are from 2011 and only show a difference of around $500 between surgical and endovascular approaches. We speculate the true cost of CLTI is greater.
Another factor involves the severity of cancer compared to CLTI. To most patients, cancer is a serious and potentially deadly disease. Effective screening programs are under constant study to catch cancers at a lower stage. Strong multidisciplinary teams are activated and provide continuity of care to the patients as they journey through cancer care, whereas most centers seeing CLTI patients do not have this level of resource.
Unfortunately, screening for—and finding early signs of—CLTI remains a challenge where literature has demonstrated patients with signs of CLTI are missed in the primary care setting.
Finally, CLTI is a chronic disease that continues to worsen over time, whereas early-stage cancers may be curable. This curative treatment leads to long and relatively healthy lives where the only remaining expenditures will be continued surveillance.
VS: What do you hope the vascular community will take away from the research?
This study does not aim to detract from the critical work and strong need for cancer research and innovation, with cancer research having led to revolutionary outcomes that have translated to reduced healthcare costs. Additional research aimed at prevention, treatment, management and screening can potentially offer additional patient outcome benefits and, by extension, reduced costs.
Cancer is feared by patients for relatable reasons. In the clinical setting, we have not seen an equal level of concern coming from CLTI patients, especially in early disease. At the late stage of the disease, where patients are afflicted by tissue loss, independence loss, and complications from treatments or comorbid conditions, we start to see greater understanding surrounding the severity of CLTI. Improvement in awareness of CLTI may provide a benefit to patient outcomes in the form of prevention or earlier disease recognition and this may lead to cost savings.
Furthermore, strong efforts are taken in cancer centers to ensure a patient has funding and means to avoid being lost to follow-up. Having a combination of vascular surgeons, wound care specialists and medical physicians with expertise in cardiac and renal complications within one clinic would allow for streamlined care to patients with CLTI.
As clinicians, we have all seen patients with poorly controlled comorbid disease. If this can be better managed, this offers a small start to improving outcomes. Investing in proper chronic disease management can provide a measure for cost reductions in the form of lengthening intervals between operations and, in theory, can reduce the number of total operations.
Finally, continued efforts on the development of evidence-based guidelines are needed. Will Date
Matthew Eagleton
How likely are your surgical patients to have disruptive bleeding?
EXPERTS TO EXAMINE ‘EVOLVING LANDSCAPE’ OF VASCULAR INTERVENTION IN PE MANAGEMENT
A number of topics relating to pulmonary embolism (PE) management—including lytic therapy versus thrombectomy, risk stratification and device selection—will feature this afternoon during an educational session. Taking place from 3:15–4.45 p.m. on the Second Floor (Room 217–219), the session will also see experts discuss current evidence and the role of vascular surgeons within the “evolving landscape” of PE management.
By Jamie Bell
The session is set to be moderated by Natalie Sridharan, MD, MS, assistant professor of surgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Linda Le, MD, assistant professor of clinical cardiovascular surgery at Houston Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas.
“PE remains a highly lethal problem, with mortality rates
PHILIP P. GOODNEY, MD, IS UNVEILING a pivotal monitoring tool during the Vascular Quality Initiative (VQI) Annual Meeting, VQI@VAM, today—the Long-Term EVAR Assessment and Follow-up (LEAF) surveillance protocol, a multi-stakeholder initiative aimed at enhancing long-term monitoring of endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) outcomes.
The presentation, being delivered by the section chief at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire, highlights the importance of post-market, observational surveillance in improving patient outcomes and device performance over a 10-year period.
To improve the quality, safety, and effectiveness of vascular care after EVAR, the LEAF surveillance protocol uses fully anonymized and de-identified real-world evidence and data from the VQI VISION’s registry-claims linked datasets and Kaiser Permanente datasets, which represents over 52,000 patients from more than 400 centers. The protocol will provide device-specific long-term safety evaluation for endpoints such as reintervention, rupture and mortality.
The LEAF surveillance protocol was
relatively unchanged in recent times,” Sridharan told VS@VAM. “Catheter-directed interventions for PE have grown in popularity with a rapidly proliferating number of devices designed for thrombus removal. The evidence basis for intervention is also growing, but has somewhat lagged behind device development.”
Efthymios Avgerinos, MD, associate professor of vascular surgery at the University of Athens in Athens, Greece, will kick off the session by outlining existing evidence on PE intervention—posing the question: is there a mortality benefit, and does it matter?
decision” will be contested by Fanny Alie-Cusson, MD, assistant professor of vascular surgery at Atrium Health in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Zachary AbuRahma, DO, assistant professor of vascular surgery at Charleston Area Medical Center in Charleston, West Virginia.
Risk stratification in acute PE will feature next, with Patrick Muck, MD, chief of the Section of Vascular Surgery at Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio, taking to the podium to discuss methods for determining which patients will truly benefit from interventional treatments as well as ensuring these patients are treated in a timely fashion.
Following this, a debate over whether catheter-directed lysis versus percutaneous thrombectomy can be a “data-driven
“Remaining not only involved but at the forefront of PE management is important for the well-rounded vascular program”
NATALIE SRIDHARAN
created in collaboration with industry device manufacturers Cook Medical, Gore, Endologix, Medtronic and Terumo Aortic and approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The protocol will ingest real-world data to provide insight into long-term outcomes in a sustainable manner. The multi-year initiative will generate annual device-specific clinical outcomes reports to ultimately provide a 10-year view into EVAR outcomes, with the ultimate goal of improving quality care for patients. All collected data are generated as reports without patient specific details in compliance with the rules and regulations of registry and Medicare beneficiaries.
“Improving outcomes is always a top priority for the SVS VQI and our industry partners,” said Philip Goodney, MD, chair of the SVS VQI LEAF Steering Committee, speaking ahead of his presentation. “This protocol is a testament of our commitment to quality. Real-world data provided by the SVS VQI registry is a vital tool for the analysis of medical products and devices.”
Key clinical endpoints on the LEAF surveillance Protocol include overall mortality, aneurysm-related mortality, rupture, reintervention and conversion to open surgery. Imaging endpoints will track changes in aneurysm size, endoleak classification and device patency. Follow-up will be conducted according to each site’s standard of care, with the next major data report scheduled for release this fall at the 18-month mark. Goodney emphasized the collaborative nature of the initiative, calling it “a critical step forward in ensuring the long-term safety and effectiveness of EVAR technologies in everyday clinical practice.” —Marlén Gomez
These discussions will be followed up by a talk from Steven Abramowitz, MD, chair of the Department of Vascular Surgery at MedStar Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C., who will present on device selection in PE intervention and ask: is bigger always better when it comes to thrombus removal?
Sridharan will subsequently take to the podium herself for the session’s penultimate presentation, providing insights on “how to deal with PE in transit,” including advice on when and how to intervene safely.
The session is set to conclude with a presentation from Dennis Gable, MD, chief of vascular and endovascular surgery at the Baylor Scott and White Heart Hospital in Plano, Texas, who will shine a spotlight on the role for vascular surgeons as a part of PE response teams—drilling down into whether they should be considered “leaders, or spectators.”
“Vascular surgeons need to be leaders in the management and treatment for PE, and all thromboembolic disorders,” Gable told VS@VAM
“Vascular surgeons are the experts of the vascular system—both arterial and venous. However, vascular surgeons remain underrepresented in the management of PE and leadership of PE response teams,” Sridharan added. “Remaining not only involved but at the forefront of PE management is important for the well-rounded vascular program.”
ROBOTIC SURGERY
FIRST-IN-MAN RESULTS TO SHOW PROMISE FOR ROBOT-ASSISTED HIFU IN PAD TREATMENT
RESULTS OF A FIRST-IN-HUMAN STUDY OF NONinvasive, robotic-assisted high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) for the treatment of peripheral arterial disease (PAD), to be presented Friday morning, will show that the therapy appears to be safe and feasible for the treatment of PAD localized in the femoral artery.
Robert M Wiggers, MD, a vascular surgery PhD candidate at University Medical Center Utrecht in Utrecht, The Netherlands, will present findings of the safety and feasibility study, which includes results following the treatment of 12 patients treated using the therapy, during the International Plenary taking place 6:30–8 a.m. (Second Floor, Room 224).
Robot-assisted HIFU creates thermal lesions with submillimeter resolution enabling precise targeting of atherosclerotic plaques, Wiggers will detail. Preclinical studies have demonstrated the safety of the treatment, which it is hoped may be associated with fewer perioperative risks.
This first-in-human, non-randomized pilot study includes symptomatic PAD patients with a primary stenosis of the common femoral and/or proximal superficial femoral artery. Primary outcomes of the study include the major complication rate and technical feasibility. Secondary outcomes included clinical endpoints, such as the ankle-brachial index, and imaging parameters.
Between June 2019 and April 2024, investigators screened 232 limbs in 205 patients for treatment, ultimately treating 12 patients with unilateral lesions using HIFU treatment. They found that the mean treatment time was 113±28.2 minutes and technical success was achieved in all patients. No major complications occurred within 30 days of the procedure, or during the three months of follow-up.
Throughout a median clinical follow-up of 19.8 months, one patient underwent endovascular target lesion reintervention (TLR), while the other patients remained free from TLR, Wiggers is due to report. Eight patients (66.7%) underwent additional ipsilateral imaging after the study follow-up, after a median 25.9 months. Of these, four (50%) no longer had significant (>50%) stenosis of the target artery, as judged by independent radiologists.—Will Date
From top: Natalie Sridharan and Dennis Gable
LEARN MORE
Thin-Walled Sheath
VAM 202 5
SCHEDULE AT-A-GLANCE
TUESDAY & WEDNESDAY
Tuesday, June 3, 2025
8
2–5 p.m.
2–6
6
6 a.m.–5 p.m.
8
8
8 a.m.–8:10 a.m.
8 a.m.–5 p.m. Crossroads@VAM-Cook Medical
8 a.m.–5 p.m. Crossroads@VAM-Gore
CC, Second Floor, Room 206
8 a.m.–5 p.m. Crossroads@VAM-Medtronic Morial CC, Second Floor, Room 205
8 a.m.–5 p.m. Crossroads@VAM-Surmodics-By Appointment Only Morial CC, Second Floor, Room 203/204
8:10–9:45 a.m. Plenary Session 1: William J. von Liebig Forum
Morial CC, First Floor, Great Hall A 9:30–9:45 a.m. Plenary Session 1: Yao Research Award
9:45–10 a.m. Coffee Break
Morial CC, First Floor, Great Hall A
Morial CC, First Floor, Great Hall Pre-Function 10–11:15 a.m. Plenary Session 2
Morial CC, First Floor, Great Hall A 11:15 a.m.–12:15 p.m. E. Stanley Crawford Critical Issues Forum: Empowering Vascular Surgeons
12:30–1:30 p.m. World Federation of Vascular Societies Educational Sessions
12:30–1:30 p.m. Industry Symposia: Abbott Presents: Drug-Eluting Resorbable Scaffolds: Should They Be The New Standard of Care for Infrapopliteal CLTI? (not eligible for CME credit)
12:30–1:30 p.m. Industry Symposia: Preparing for Practice: A Gore Lunch Symposium for Vascular Fellows (not eligible for CME credit)
Next gen: Pair of sessions tailored for medical students lay
out keys to the specialty
MEDICAL STUDENTS ATTENDING
VAM 2025 will have two unique opportunities to deepen their understanding of vascular surgery through sessions designed specifically for their level of training.
On Thursday, June 5, the SVS will host two concurrent sessions, each tailored to different stages of medical education.
The Introduction to Vascular Surgery session, aimed at first- and second-year medical students (MS1-2), will run from 6:30–8 a.m. on the host venue’s Second Floor, Room 224. The session will open with remarks from Silviu Marica, MD, and Gabriela Velazquez-Ramirez, MD, followed by a welcome on SVS leadership delivered by SVS Vice President Linda M. Harris, MD, of the University at Buffalo.
Topics will include an overview of the specialty, the role of vascular surgeons in hospitals and guidance on gaining exposure to the field.
Speakers such as Omar Selim, MD, of Harvard Medical School and Kimberly T. Malka, MD, of Maine Medical Center will share insights on mentorship and career customization. The session will conclude with personal journeys into vascular surgery, including a talk by Mikayla Lowenkamp, MD, of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
Simultaneously, third- and fourth-year medical students (MS3-4) can attend the How to Succeed as a Vascular Surgery Residency Applicant session in Room 220222. Moderated by Venita Chandra, MD, of Stanford and Natalie D. Sridharan, MD, of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), the session will also begin at 6:30 a.m. Central Time.
SVS President Matthew Eagleton, MD, from Harvard Medical School, will deliver the SVS leadership welcome, followed by a series of presentations covering the residency application process, what program directors seek in candidates and how to excel during sub-internships and interviews.
Speakers include Zachary AbuRahma, MD, Kathryn L. DiLosa, MD, and Luigi Pascarella, MD, among others.
Both sessions emphasize the importance of mentorship, research and career flexibility within vascular surgery, offering students a comprehensive look at the specialty and practical advice for advancing in the field.
For more information on VAM 2025 programming, visit vascular.org/ OnlinePlanner.
REMEMBER TO CAST YOUR VOTES IN 2025 SVS ELECTIONS
SVS MEMBERS IN GOOD STANDING CAN STILL CAST THEIR VOTES for key leadership positions and important bylaw changes in the 2025 elections to have their voices heard. Also on the ballot is a vote on a proposed bylaw change regarding Senior Membership.
The election will remain open until 2 p.m. Central Time on Thursday, June 5, and the results will be announced during the SVS Annual Business Meeting on June 6 at 5:15 p.m. Central Time (Second Floor, Room 208–210).
“As the vascular surgery community gathers for VAM 2025, SVS reminds all eligible members that voting in the election is still open, but not for long,” said Nominating Committee Chair Ali AbuRahma, MD. “By voting, you help ensure that SVS remains a strong, unified voice, representing vascular surgery, advancing our profession and promoting the issues that matter most to you.”
The candidates nominated for vice president are Andres Schanzer, MD, and William P. Shutze, MD. For the secretary position, the nominees are Rabih A. Chaer, MD; Michael S. Conte, MD; Sherene Shalhub, MD; and Malachi G. Sheahan, MD. Learn more about the candidates at vascular.org/Election
This year, for the first time, SVS has four candidates running for Secretary. When there are more than two candidates, the SVS executive board requires rank order voting, meaning members will rank the secretary candidates in order of their preference, from one (your first choice) to four (your fourth choice). SVS members can rank as many or as few candidates as they would like but must rank at least one unless they wish to abstain from voting. No two candidates may receive the same ranking. In rank-order voting, election officials initially count only the first-choice votes. If no candidate receives a majority (more than 50%), the candidate with the fewest number of votes is eliminated. Ballots for that candidate are then redistributed to the next preferred candidate on those ballots. This process continues until one candidate has a majority.
Before voting on the bylaw referenda, members should review the proposed bylaw changes and rationale related to Senior Membership. This referendum includes several related changes that form a single policy update. You may vote in favor, against or choose to abstain. A single vote applies to the entire set of proposed changes.
With elections often decided by just a few votes, SVS urges all eligible members to participate and help shape the future of the Society and the vascular surgery profession.
Explore the future of vascular surgery at Touchpoint@VAM
TODAY, VAM ATTENDEES ARE encouraged to engage in an eye-opening experience at Touchpoint@VAM for an interactive event that will showcase the latest advancements in vascular surgery technology.
The event will be held on the host venue’s First Floor, Rivergate Room, from 1–5 p.m. Touchpoint@VAM is set to revolutionize surgical techniques featuring cutting-edge devices, immersive simulations and state-ofthe-art virtual reality technology.
A host of leading companies will participate in this year’s event, including Boston Scientific, Cook Medical, Endologix, Gore, Haemonetics, Johnson & Johnson MedTech, Penumbra, Reflow Medical and Teleflex.
DON’T MISS OUT, DOWNLOAD THE VQI APP TODAY
MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR TIME AT the Vascular Quality Initiative (VQI) Annual Meeting, VQI@VAM, and stay engaged with everything the organization has to offer. Download the VQI mobile app on your Apple or Android devices to stay equipped with the latest resources and updates. This powerful tool is designed to enhance your experience during your conference stay and beyond.
The VQI app offers a variety of valuable features tailored for our members, including risk calculators, regional pages, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) communications and more essential resources right at your fingertips.
Stay informed with push notifications that provide important updates about group meetings, upcoming reports and relevant news items directly related to your interests.
Register for the Women’s Networking Event
“By voting, you help ensure that SVS remains a strong, unified voice, representing vascular surgery, advancing our profession and promoting the issues that matter most to you”
ALI ABURAHMA
JOIN YOUR COLLEAGUES FOR AN engaging Women’s Networking Event on Thursday evening at 7 p.m. Set in the Camp Room on the Third Floor of the Hilton Riverside, this event provides a valuable opportunity for attendees to connect, share insights and engage in meaningful conversations.
For those still looking to strengthen their professional network, registration will be available on-site, making it easy to participate in this networking experience. Highlighting the night, Ruth Bush, MD, will deliver a brief talk about her career, offering inspiration and motivation for all attendees.
Ali AbuRahma
TRAINING SMARTER, NOT HARDER: ANALYSIS FINDS NO NEGATIVE IMPACT OF REDUCED CORE SURGICAL REQUIREMENTS
By Éva Malpass
SINCE THE 2018 ACCREDITATION Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) reduction of core surgical requirements from 24 to 18 months during integrated vascular surgery residency, vascular residents’ operative experience has been unaffected, suggesting improved training optimization and efficiency.
This was the salient conclusion drawn from a recent retrospective analysis led by Emily Y. Fan, MD, a vascular surgery attending and associate program director at the University of Massachusetts Chan School of Medicine, Worchester, Massachusetts, and set to be presented by Dominique M. Dockery, vascular surgery PGY2 resident, during the SVS-VESS Scientific Session 2a (3:15–4 p.m.) today.
Fan and colleagues’ review of public ACGME case logs compared the five years prior (2013–2017) to the post-reduction period (2018–2022), marking trends in numbers of surgeon chief/junior cases over four categories including: general surgery open, general surgery laparoscopic, vascular surgery open,
and vascular surgery endovascular in three anatomic regions: head/neck, thoracic, and abdominal.
“We found that reducing core surgery requirements did not negatively impact overall operative volume or the proportion of general and vascular surgery cases,” said Dockery and Fan, speaking to VS@VAM ahead of today’s session. In the post-reduction period, an average of 260 cases were logged by integrated residents per year—general surgery accounted for between 34–38% of total operative volumes, with an average of 95.3 cases. The research team found no significant changes in operative experience by anatomic region.
tion of general versus vascular surgery cases also remained unchanged between pre- and post-reduction periods.
“Rather, there were shifts in the types of general surgery cases being done, with trends towards increased open cases and decreased laparoscopic cases,” Dockery explained. “This suggests our trainees are utilizing core surgery time in a more efficient manner.” The results showed a decrease in general surgery laparoscopic averages in the post-reduction era from 49.8 to 44.8 cases, with concomitant minor increases in general surgery open thoracic and open abdominal averages.
The research group also found that general surgery and laparoscopic cases in all three anatomic regions remained stable, while total operative volume, open surgical cases—including open abdominal aortic aneurysm repair—and the propor-
In the absence of evidence showing that reduced core surgical requirements for vascular residents negatively impacts training opportunities, Fan and colleagues’ results indicate that working smarter, not harder may be beneficial.
“Trainee education is an integral part of our specialty, and it’s important to continuously assess our training paradigms,” Fan added.
Endorsing further reassessment, the research group hope that an additional reduction in general surgery requirements to 12 months should be considered a feasible option without compromising surgical training quality. “We hope this research will help inform potential future changes in training requirements as we continue to adapt and optimize our training programs,” Fan stated.
VASCULAR SURGERY MAINTAINS POPULARITY, BECOMES ‘MORE COMPETITIVE’ AFTER SWITCH TO VIRTUAL INTERVIEWS
A study aimed at assessing the impact of a pandemic-related switch to virtual recruitment from in-person interviews on the Match for vascular surgery residents demonstrated that the transition had no impact on the popularity of the specialty.
This is among the findings set to be delivered by presenting author Christina Cui, BS, a fourth-year medical student at the University of California, San Diego, during VESS Session 1b on Wednesday (2:20–3 p.m.) on the Second Floor, Room 228–230.
Cui was part of a research team looking at residency application and Match-related data collected from National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) reports for in-person interview cycles from 2010–2019, compared with virtual interview cycles from 2020–2024.
Cui and colleagues found that the total number of vascular surgery programs, positions and applicants were significantly higher during the virtual interview cycles, with similar increases noted in total ACGMEaccredited equivalents, ultimately finding that vascular surgery became a “more competitive residency,” with fewer applicants matching at their first choice.—Bryan Kay
Emily Y. Fan
Dominique M. Dockery
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VAM THROUGH THE LENS »
VAM 2025 in the Big Easy follows in the footsteps of a 2024 edition hosted on SVS home turf stacked with cutting-edge vascular surgical content. In Chicago, current SVS President Matthew Eagleton, MD, delivered an enlightening preamble to the presidential address of his predecessor, Joseph Mills, MD.
Last year, SVS members took part in four days of scientific and educational content, including a slew of plenary and several special interest sessions, engaging in debate and discussion around new data and ongoing issues of interest in the vascular surgery community. Here is a pictorial review.
“As we celebrate our progress and look ahead, I am inspired by what we can accomplish together”
MATTHEW EAGLETON
CHOICE OF IMAGING MAY INFLUENCE OUTCOMES FOR AORTIC TRAUMA PATIENTS
By Will Date
PATIENTS UNDERGOING THORACIC endovascular aortic repair (TEVAR) for blunt thoracic aortic injury (BTAI) fare better when they are treated in a hybrid operating room (OR) or interventional radiology (IR) suite with advanced imaging capabilities, new registry data presented during this morning’s William J. von Liebig Forum (8:10–9:45 a.m.) on the First Floor (Great Hall A) will show. However, researchers will also report that despite the availability of advanced imaging technologies in centers, many trauma patients are still treated in the standard OR using mobile C-arm imaging. P resenting author John Cabot, MD, of Stanford University School of Medicine (Stanford, California), tells VS@ VAM that the research should provoke discussion and reflection on protocols for the treatment of patients with aortic injury. “What this study shows is that even though we’ve got these high-tech imaging systems, a lot of people are still using the traditional C-arm, which is a mobile unit not
necessarily designed for endovascular procedures,” Cabot says.
Using data from the PROOVIT registry, which captures trauma-specific outcomes related to vascular injury from 14 U.S. trauma centers, Cabot and colleagues have compared clinical characteristics and outcomes of TEVAR for BTAI performed in the setting of a standard operating room with a portable C-arm, versus a hybrid OR or IR suite with a fixed imaging system. Their research accounts for almost 200 procedures, which took place between 2012–2021.
Comparing the two settings using univariate and multivariate analyses, what the researchers have been able to show is that C-arm procedures often take longer than those performed in the hybrid room, and have higher complication rates, including stroke.
“What’s probably even more interesting is that for a lot of the places that were using C-arms, we have data to show that they did have a hybrid room, but they still were
preferentially using the C-arm,” says Cabot.
“It’s not a cost issue because they have these systems at their hospitals—so why are we not using these for blunt injuries in the thoracic aorta? That is really the bottom line.”
Though the research does not drill down into some of the underlying reasons why the
“What this study shows is that even though we’ve got these high-tech imaging systems, a lot of people are still using the traditional C-arm”
JOHN CABOT
patients may have been treated in one setting or another, Cabot says that, without being able to offer any definitive answers, there could be a number of reasons why surgeons may need to compromise.
“One reason might be availability. Are there elective cases that are taking up all of the hybrid time, or does the cardiac service have preferential access to this, or the vascular service for their elective cases instead of these traumas that come in?” he speculates. “It could also just be that logistically it is a lot easier if a patient has a lot of other injuries and they need, say, an orthopedic procedure, to just treat them in a regular OR, using the C-arm, and let the orthopedic surgeons do their cases as well.
“Unfortunately, with the level of data we have in this registry we can’t have any definitive answers, but these are all things we can postulate on.”
Reflecting on what these data should add to the conversation, Cabot says that they should give surgeons greater incentive to ensure that patients are treated in the most appropriate setting. “If every vascular surgeon has the opportunity to use the hybrid room, they will. Sometimes is it worth the battle of fighting with the OR staff, fighting with the trauma surgeon or whoever else is doing a procedure to say ‘we need to use this’,” he comments. “Personally, I am even more motivated to say ‘no, we need to go to the hybrid room’, as not only is it going to be easier for me, but the patient’s outcomes are better, and I have data to prove that now.”
John Cabot
VENOUS DISEASE
Filling in the gaps: Deep venous session seeks to address ‘overlooked’ corner of vascular surgery practice
“THE BURDEN OF VENOUS DISEASE IS SUCH THAT, even if every vascular surgeon only performed venous interventions, we still would not have enough surgeon supply to meet patient demand.” So says Jake Hemingway, MD, co-moderator of the Deep Venous Obstruction—Evaluation, Management, Tips and Tricks session on Thursday (3:30–5 p.m., Second Floor, Room 220–222), laying out a picture of the state of venous treatment across the U.S.
“Chronic venous disease continues to play a major role in the modern vascular practice, as more than 6 million Americans suffer from advanced venous disease, including 500,000–600,000 Americans with venous ulceration,” the assistant professor in the Division of Vascular Surgery at the University of Washington in Seattle tells VS@VAM. “While often overlooked as ‘cosmetic,’ in reality the healthcare costs and quality of life impacts associated with chronic venous disease are staggering. Patients with advanced chronic venous disease report physical quality of life scores that are
WFVS SESSION
comparable to several chronic conditions—COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease], osteoarthritis, angina—and the healthcare costs associated with non-healing venous wounds are on the order of billions of dollars annually.”
A backdrop to this is a relative invisibility of venous education during vascular surgery training, Hemingway explains. “Venous education is overlooked in our training. The lack of dedicated venous education has failed our specialty—and our patients,” he says. “The average fellow and resident graduates with 45 and 75 venous cases, respectively, in the entirety of their training, with the volume of deep venous education being even lower. Most graduates only perform a handful of deep venous thrombectomies, and no deep venous reconstructions. These challenges in venous education are only exacerbated by the under-representation of venous disease at our national meetings, in which further education is limited.”
VAM 2024 featured just one non-industry sponsored venous session, Hemingway continues. Of the eight talks, he says, only two were focused on deep venous obstruction. “Deep venous obstruction is a challenging but extremely rewarding clinical entity to manage, given the quality-of-life improvements patients can see with successful reconstruction. Unfortunately, the lack of dedicated venous education
“Venous education is overlooked in our training. The lack of dedicated venous education has failed our specialty—and our patients”
JAKE HEMINGWAY
AI, wellness and surgical techniques to feature in WFVS educational session
By Jamie Bell
A WIDE-RANGING WORLD FEDERATION OF VASCULAR Societies (WFVS) educational session at VAM25 will examine a number of contemporary topics—including artificial intelligence (AI) in aortic disease management, wellness within the context of vascular surgery training and practice, and more.
Moderated by Palma Shaw, MD, MBA, professor of surgery at Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York, and Prem Gupta, MBBS, MS, clinical director and head of vascular surgery at CARE Hospital in Hyderabad, India—current WFVS secretary-general and past WFVS president, respectively—the session will take place on the Second Floor (Room 220–222) from 12.30–1.30 p.m.
Among the presentations in this session is a talk from Dawn Coleman, MD, division chief of vascular and endovascular surgery at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, which will assess “complicated” considerations over wellness in vascular surgery training and practice.
Philippe Kolh, MD, tenured professor of human physiology and biochemistry at the University of Liège in Liège, Belgium, will discuss how AI can contribute to the management of aortic diseases. Later on, Hiroyoshi Komai, MD, chief of vascular surgery at Kansai Medical University Medical Center in Moriguchi, Japan, is set to outline care strategies and the current status of chronic limb-threatening ischemia (CLTI) treatment in his country, before presentations from Brazil and Australia share data on open renal artery reconstructions postendovascular failures and lessons learned in vascular practice.
has failed our specialty, and our patients, in that the lack of exposure not only results in vascular surgeons failing to recognize the possibilities of deep venous reconstructions— leaving patients suffering unnecessarily—but also hampers the career development of our rising colleagues.”
The deep venous session—which Hemingway is co-moderating alongside Anthony Lewis, MD, a vascular surgeon at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pennsylvania—seeks to help fill venous education gaps.
Talks include an evaluation of venous outflow obstruction and patient selection for intervention by venous disease titan William Marston, MD, professor of surgery at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and an assessment of the management of chronically indwelling inferior vena cava (IVC) filters by fellow leading venous expert Rabih Chaer, MD, professor of surgery at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, New York.
Elsewhere, Peter Gloviczki, MD, the Joe M. and Ruth Roberts emeritus professor of surgery at the May Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona, and past president of both the SVS and the American Venous Forum (AVF), will explore open surgery in the deep veins in “Don’t Forget the Palma—When open bypass/reconstruction is best and how I do it.”
“From patient selection to specific technique and management tips, we have brought together a fantastic group of speakers to answer specific, practical questions, which any surgeon performing deep venous reconstructions will no doubt encounter on a regular basis,” Hemingway adds. “How do I evaluate for a venous outflow obstruction? What should I do with an indwelling filter? What should my anti-thrombotic/anti-coagulation regimen be? When should I do open surgery? How do I manage complications?”—Bryan Kay
CLTI
BEST-CLI SUBSET ANALYSES AND THEIR ROLE IN INFORMING PATIENT CARE
By Éva Malpass
HOW IMPORTANT ARE BEST-CLI SUBSET analyses when informing which patients are better served by initial open surgery or endovascular therapy? Set to be discussed this afternoon, Olamide Alabi, MD, associate professor of vascular surgery at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, will share how several important secondary analyses have broadened the understanding of BEST-CLI data, adding credibility or calling into question the original findings in specific populations.
Alabi is set present during the Who Should Not Undergo Endovascular Treatment for Chronic Limb-Threatening Ischemia session, taking place today (3:15–4.45 p.m.) on t the Second Floor (Room 220–222).
deeper” past the initial design of the original research question. “Subset analyses allow us to explore how the tested interventions affect specific populations as well as examine relevant additional clinical questions in the trial setting,” Alabi explains.
“This allows for a more robust understanding of the trial population, the disease process being studied, and can question the overall findings of the parent outcomes, specifically if these are not found to be true in specific populations of patients.”
Speaking to VS@VAM ahead of her presentation, Alabi says she hopes the audience will “understand how these subset analyses crucially inform care for our patients,” but also appreciate their limitations, knowing that “not all questions can be answered definitively by this method.”
Her belief is that subset analyses seek to “delve
Using the BEST-CLI dataset, secondary analyses have concerned sexbased outcomes regarding limb salvage rates, the influence of smoking status, and secondary endpoint investigations highlighting clinical and hemodynamic failure rates and reintervention-related endpoints, which expanded on longterm efficacy and durability of each revascularization strategy.
Against this backdrop, Alabi aims to explore how to arrive at a better understanding of which population may benefit from initial open surgery versus endovascular therapy through BEST-CLI subset analyses.
Olamide Alabi
Medical Editor Malachi Sheahan III, MD
Associate Medical Editors
Bernadette Aulivola, MD | O. William Brown, MD | Elliot L. Chaikof, MD, PhD | Carlo Dall’Olmo, MD | Alan M. Dietzek MD, RPVI, FACS | John F. Eidt, MD | Robert Fitridge, MD | Dennis R. Gable, MD | Linda Harris, MD | Krishna Jain, MD | Larry Kraiss, MD | Joann Lohr, MD
| James McKinsey, MD | Joseph Mills, MD | Erica L. Mitchell, MD, MEd, FACS | Leila Mureebe, MD | Frank Pomposelli, MD | David Rigberg, MD | Clifford Sales, MD | Bhagwan Satiani, MD | Larry Scher, MD | Marc Schermerhorn, MD | Murray L. Shames, MD | Niten Singh, MD | Frank J. Veith, MD | Robert Eugene Zierler, MD
SHERENE SHALHUB, MD, WILL SET OUT a new biologically informed framework that “captures the diverse spectrum of arterial fragility and repair outcomes across inherited and acquired aortic disease” during Thursday’s Roy Greenberg Distinguished Lecture on Innovation (9:30–10:00 a.m., First Floor, Great Hall A).
Shalhub, chief of vascular surgery at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) in Portland, Oregon, will introduce the Aortic and Arterial Vulnerability Spectrum (AAVS) in her talk ‘The aortic vulnerability spectrum: Reshaping the future of aortic surgery’.
Speaking to VS@VAM ahead of the lecture, Shalhub notes that the AAVS was designed to address a gap between molecular and ultrastructural pathology and clinical decision-making and aims to “move beyond binary classifications” to better predict procedural durability, remodeling potential, and long-term risk.
in thinking to inform better patient care.
Shalhub highlights the use of ultrastructural skin biopsy analysis as a surrogate for aortic and arterial biology as “one of the most transformative innovations.” She explains: “In patients with aortic aneurysms and dissections, the skin provides a minimally invasive, accessible tissue that mirrors the extracellular matrix and connective tissue vulnerabilities found in the aorta, offering a unique window into the aorta.”
In addition, Shalhub considers how her work continues the legacy of Roy Greenberg as she
prepares to deliver this year’s eponymously named lecture at VAM.
“Dr Roy Greenberg pioneered customized endovascular solutions long before FDA [Food and Drug Administration]-approved devices were widely available,” Shalhub says. “He understood that durable repair requires more than device deployment; it demands alignment between anatomy, hemodynamics, and biology. That philosophy resonates directly with AAVS, which seeks to individualize care based on biologic vulnerability, not just anatomy. AAVS can be seen as a biologic extension of Greenberg’s legacy: just as he matched devices to anatomy, we now aim to match interventions to underlying arterial biology.
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“We always think about aortic disease in a binary manner,” Shalhub comments. “In reality, we should think of aortic disease as a spectrum, where you have some people who have extreme manifestations of the disease and then have other people with milder manifestations of the disease.”
Shalhub asserts that “everybody falls somewhere on that spectrum,” encouraging a shift
“AAVS can be seen as a biologic extension of Greenberg’s legacy: just as he matched devices to anatomy, we now aim to match interventions to underlying arterial biology”
SHERENE SHALHUB
INDUSTRY STAGE Exhibit hall: Vascular Live set to feature devices from across the vasculature
THE VASCULAR LIVE STAGE in the VAM 2025 exhibit hall is set to feature 11 different talks on vascular devices from 10 different companies across Thursday and Friday.
The 25-minute presentations— which are not are not eligible for continuing medical education [CME] credit—are being delivered during exhibit hours on Thursday and Friday.
The full Vascular Live running order is:
Thursday, June 5
10:20–10:45 a.m.
Sponsored by Reflow Medical “Revolutionizing BTK [belowthe-knee] CLTI [chronic limbthreatening ischemia] treatment: The impact of spur RST [retrievable scaffold therapy]”
Speaker: Michael Siah, MD 12:15–12:40 p.m.
Sponsored by Abbott “XACTLY what you’ve been waiting for. Now re-engineered for TCAR [transcarotid artery revascularization]”
Speaker: Mazin Foteh, MD
1–1:25 p.m.
Sponsored by Philips “Emerging real-world evidence: Unveiling the clinical impact of arterial IVUS [intravascular ultrasound]”
Speakers: Nicolas Mouawad, MD
3–3:25 p.m.
Sponsored by Boston Scientific “Transforming complex PAD [peripheral arterial disease] care: Drug elution breakthroughs in vascular treatment”
Speakers: Michael R. Jaff, DO (moderator); Anahita Dua, MD; Liz Genovese, MD; and Misty Humphries, MD
5:15–5:40 p.m.
“His legacy inspires today’s push toward precision vascular medicine where genotype, and substrate, guide care.”
SVS president Matthew Eagleton, MD, selected Shalhub to deliver this year’s Greenberg Lecture. Commenting on his choice of speaker, Eagleton tells VS@VAM: “The intent of the Greenberg Lecture was to highlight a physician who was interested in progressing the field of endovascular care through research. Dr Shalhub’s research on the genetic component of aortic disease would be very interesting to Roy. In particular, her focus on how that may affect what treatment options we offer our patients. He would love this year’s topic and to hear Dr Shalhub’s address.”
Sponsored by Shockwave “Lead the charge against challenging peripheral calcium: Introducing Shockwave Javelin Peripheral IVL [intravascular lithotripsy] for calcified occlusive disease”
Speakers: Michael Siah, MD (Moderator); Leigh Ann O’Banion, MD
5:50–6:15 p.m.
Sponsored by Siemens Healthineers
“Constructive methods to further reduce radiation exposure for surgeons, staff and patients”
Speaker: Daniel Clair, MD
Friday, June 6
9:30–10 a.m.
Sponsored by Surmodics
“Below-the-knee thrombectomy
case insights and outcomes using the Pounce LP [Low Profile] thrombectomy system”
Speaker: David O’Connor, MD 12:10–12:35 p.m.
Sponsored by Boston Scientific “TCAR: The effective, efficient and clinically proven choice for carotid interventions”
Speakers: Sumaira Macdonald, MD, PhD (moderator); Alan Lumsden, MD; Marc Schermerhorn, MD; and Brant Ullery, MD
12:45–1:10 p.m.
Sponsored by Gore
“Optimizing outcomes with large diameter tapered TEVAR devices: Clinical experiences in challenging anatomy”
Speaker: Alyssa Pyun, MD
1:20–1:45 p.m.
Sponsored by Terumo
“Advancing abdominal horizons with TREO: Where the physician becomes the tailor”
Speaker: Sara Zettervall, MD; and Michael Stoner, MD 1:50–2 p.m.
Sponsored By Cook Medical Cook Sizing Competition and Poster Winners
