Dear collegues,

It is my honour to announce a hybrid symposium (live and online), which will be on the 20th of April, at 3 p.m. CET entitled: CHRONIC THROMBOEMBOLIC PULMONARY HYPERTENSION: the beginnings of the Pulmonary Endarterectomy Program in University Medical Centre Ljubljana.

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With this sypmosium we would like to mark the introduction of pulmonary endarterectomy(PTE) surgery program in Slovenia. 

The main lecture of the symposium will be held by dr. Choo Ng, one of the world's best PTE surgeons from Royal Papworth Hospital.

Please check the attached program, register and I hope to see as many of you as possible! After you register, you will receive the link and password to the meeting website on April 18th.

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On behalf of the organizing comitee,

Polona Mlakar, MD, PhD       

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ABOUT RECENT DEVELOPMENTS REGARDING CTEPH TREATMENT IN SLOVENIA:

Chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension(CTEPH) is a rare complication after acute pulmonary embolism(or only existing of risk factors for VTE), which has a very poor prognosis if left untreated. Advanced treatment modalities have significantly improved the prognosis. For a long time, patients had been successfully treated in our tertiary centre for pulmonary hypertension at the Department of Pulmonary Diseases and Allergy in collaboration with other experts within our institution and also from abroad. This includes: surgery - pulmonary endarterectomy as the first line treatment, for inoperable patients we consider the introduction of specific drugs to prevent the progression of the disease and balloon dilatation of the pulmonary arteries.  Until the COVID19 pandemic, pulmonary endarterectomy was performed for Slovenian patients at the AKH Vienna, where we had an excellent collaboration with Prof. Walter Klepetko and Prof. Irene Lang, who also performs balloon dilatations of the pulmonary arteries for our patients. 

As the availability of surgery during and after the COVID pandemic became significantly limited, we seeked for options to introduce the surgical procedure - pulmonary endarterectomy in our institution. The initiator was assoc. prof. Juš Kšela, and we accepted his initiative with open arms for the benefit of Slovenian patients. We were supported by colleagues from the Royal Papworth Hospital NHS, Cambridge, United Kingdom, which is one of the leading institutions for the performance of pulmonary endarterectomy (it is one of the so-called "BIG FOUR" leading institutions in the world) - colleagues from the AKH Vienna also learnt this procedure from them. The fact that it was realized "surgically" quickly and efficiently is marked by the timeline, since the first discussions in March last year, the whole multidisciplinary team had already been trained in September 2022 at the Royal Papworth Hospital NHS, Cambridge, United Kingdom, and the first pulmonary endarterectomy was successfully performed in December 2022 under the careful supervision of dr. Choo Yen Ng, leading pulmonary endarterectomy surgeon. Dr. Ng was impressed by the teamwork and collaboration of our entire multidisciplinary team and firmly believes that we can become one of the excellent centres to provide this procedure for the wider region.