BASIC INFORMATION ON THE CONGRESS

The 41st International Congress on Electrocardiology was held from 4 to 7 June, 2014 in Bratislava, capital of Slovakia. The Congress was organized under the auspices of the International Society of Electrocardiology in cooperation with Slovak Heart Rhythm Association and Slovak Society of Cardiology, the responsible organizer was Institute of Measurement Science, Slovak Academy of Sciences.   

After the successful congresses in 1983 and 1997 Bratislava was selected as the Congress venue for the third time with respect to its long tradition and high concentration of research and educational activities in the field of electrocardiology; they include namely the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, Faculty of Medicine of the Comenius University, Slovak Medical University and several institutes of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.

The conference enabled experts in electrocardiology from different professions: medical doctors, mathematicians, biophysicists and biomedical engineers to exchange expertise on latest results of the research, recent technologies and diagnostic approaches in the field of electrocardiology. This year 118 registered participants from 24 countries (Austria, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, USA) attended in the Congress.

The scientific program started with a pre-conference workshop on new insights into the morphology of ECG signals and its diagnostic interpretation. Opening Rijlant lecture on the current role of electrocardiology was given by Prof. Luigi de Ambroggi from Italy who stressed the continuing and irreplaceable role of ECG in many cardiac diseases but also new possibilities of noninvasive diagnostics based on ECG imaging - a method using multichannel ECG and torso tomograms for computer-assisted identification and localization of heart pathologies. Another invited lectures were devoted to challenging problems in electrocardiology: Prof. Wojciech Zareba from the USA discussed the role of ECG in assessing the patients' response to cardiac resynchronization therapy, Prof. Jose F. Rodriguez Matas from Spain presented a multi-scale approach to computer simulation of the electric activity of the heart and Prof. Mark Potse from France/Switzerland illustrated the ability of computer modeling to help us to understand the processes in the failing heart. Special session on inter-atrial block as substrate for atrial arrhythmias was organized as recognition to Prof. Bayes de Luna from Spain who received appreciation for his lifetime work in the field of electrocardiology.

Regular papers where the researchers presented their own work were reviewed by two reviewers, members of the ISE Council, Program Committee and invited experts in the field. Papers with ambivalent reviews were submitted to a third reviewer. Accepted original contributions, presented in 52 oral presentations and 34 posters were included in 14 oral and 2 poster sessions devoted to selected electrocardiology-related themes. Two sessions were devoted to young researchers who also competed for the Young Investigator's Award. The international jury chaired by Prof. Parvin Dorostkar (USA) evaluated the relevance, scientific merit and rigor, quality of writing and presentation and personal contribution of the authors. The winners of the awards are T.G. Oesterlein (Germany), L. Mirmohamadsadeghi (Switzerland) and A. Petrėnas (Lithuania).

Everyday the congress was accompanied by a social program giving the participants some feeling of the local history and culture. It started with the welcome reception under the auspices of the Bratislava mayor Milan Ftacnik that took place in the Primate Palace and included a piano recital of Miki Skuta. A concert of classical and contemporary music was presented by the chamber string orchestra “Technik” in the Moyzes Hall. A boat trip to the ruins of the Devin castle, history of which goes back to the 9th century was was followed by a banquet with folk music of brothers Wimmers in the nearby restaurant. Besides that, city-train and walking tours as well as visits of main historical monuments of Bratislava were organized for the accompanying persons.

The congress program, abstracts and selected photos are accessible on this web page. Registered participants can also download congress proceedings and additional photos using their web accounts. Printed abstracts and congress proceedings obtained all congress participants during the event, additional copies can be bought from the Congress secretariat.