The Key to the Castle: Revolutionizing Transseptal Access for Structural Heart Procedures

Prof Ole De Backer is an internationally renowned interventional cardiologist working at Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital, Denmark and is an expert in structural heart interventions – among others transcatheter heart valve interventions, percutaneous left atrial appendage closure and thoracic endovascular aortic repair. Special areas of interest are the development and adoption of a fully percutaneous, minimal invasive approach for different structural heart interventions and the use of advanced cardiac imaging tools for planning and guidance of these interventions. He is actively involved and leading several research projects in the field of transcatheter heart valves and percutaneous left atrial appendage closure. 

Dr Sagar Doshi is Director of the TAVI program at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham where he was appointed to a consultant post in 2005. He was awarded a British Heart Foundation Junior Research Fellowship and undertook his MD at the Wales Heart Research Institute. He was awarded a scholarship to undertake an Interventional Cardiology Fellowship at the prestigious Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, USA.  He has proctored TAVI cases in the UK, Japan and the USA. He has over 70 scientific publications and is an Honorary Senior lecturer at Birmingham Medical School.

Prof Christoph Hammerstingl is Head of the Department of Internal Medicine and Cardiology at the Eduardus Hospital in Cologne, DE. He started his career at the University Hospital in Bonn, where he established interventional echocardiography since 2010 for the treatment of mitral and tricuspid valve disease. As an interventionalist he proctored structural cases all over Europe and North America. He has over 150 scientific publications focussed on the outcomes of minimal invasive therapies of the AV valves, interventional and medical strategies for stroke prevention.

Dr Adnan Nadir is a consultant in interventional cardiology. He is an expert on structural heart disease interventions with a focus on transcatheter heart valve interventions. He graduated with top honours from medical school and completed his extensive medical training across three continents. He undertook advanced interventional cardiology and structural heart disease fellowships in the UK and the USA before his appointment at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham UK. Dr. Nadir firmly believes in a patient-centered approach and practices shared-decision making to give his patients the confidence in treatment options available to them. In his free time, he is kept busy by his young family and permaculture gardening while (occasionally) indulging in cycling, landscape photography, and skiing.