On November 19-20, 2020, the XII scientific-practical online conference with international participation “Days of Arrhythmology in Kyiv” took place on the basis of the Department of Functional Diagnostics of the Heart Institute. The co-organizers of this annual registered event traditionally were the Heart Institute of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and the National Medical Academy of Postgraduate Education (NMAPE) named after P. Shupik. The purpose of the annual arrhythmology forums is to raise doctors’ awareness of current opportunities for diagnosis and interventional treatment of cardiac arrhythmias. The main target audience of the conference were cardiologists, arrhythmologists, electrophysiologists, doctors of functional diagnostics. About 1000 doctors of various specialties from all regions of Ukraine pre-registered to participate in the conference. The scientific moderator of the conference was the head of the department of functional diagnostics, Professor Oleg Zharinov.
The topics of this year’s conference covered the most modern aspects of interventional arrhythmology and medical treatment of cardiac arrhythmias. Most of the reports were devoted to the management of patients with atrial fibrillation from the standpoint of the European guidelines for 2020. Aspects of determining indications for cardioversion and catheter treatment of atrial fibrillation and flutter, the role of modification of traditional risk factors and treatment of concomitant diabetes mellitus, the use of modern antithrombotic agents taking into account the available comorbidities were covered in detail. The second central topic of the forum was the prevention of life-threatening ventricular arrhythmias. The speakers paid considerable attention to electrocardiographic markers of risk of sudden cardiac death and practical aspects of the use of implanted devices as a means of primary prevention.
The scientific program of the conference was attended by leading specialists in the field of cardiac arrhythmias and conduction from the main arrhythmological centers of Ukraine, in particular, B. Kravchuk (Amosov National Institute of Cardiovascular Surgery), Y. Karpenko (Odesa National Medical University), D. Volkov (Institute of General and Emergency Surgery of the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine, Kharkiv), A. Yagensky (Volyn Center for Cardiovascular Pathology, Lutsk), M. Sorokivsky (Lviv National Medical University). The special attention of the audience was attracted by the master class of J. Dumpis (Medtronic, EMEA) on the programming of automatic cardioverter-defibrillators. Aspects of comorbidities in patients with cardiac arrhythmias were covered in the reports of S. Kozhukhov (Strazhesko Institute of Cardiology, Kyiv) and D. Lebedynets (Karazin Kharkiv National University). Employees of the Department of Functional Diagnostics (O. Zharinov, V. Kuts, O. Yepanchintseva, J. Skybchyk) and the clinical base, the Heart Institute (O. Hrytsai, V. Babenko) took an active part in the scientific program.
The conference participants took full advantage of the online format to answer the most pressing clinical questions. The full forum’s record is available on Youtube.