Preview of ESC 2010 in Stockholm

I'm getting ready to attend the ESC meeting from Aug 28th - Sept 1st in Stockholm. We are planning high levels of coverage here on Medscape and also on our sister site attheheart.org. I'll be writing a daily blog, and giving real-time updates via Twitter (@jhfrudd). The Medscape Cardiology Facebook page will be another source of information. Last year's ESC Congress in Barcelona attracted almost 32,000 registered participants (as well as 750 registered press), making it the largest medical meeting in the world; this year's event promises a similar attendance, and a similar opportunity for reporting developments of major public health importance.

I'm giving a talk concerning the molecular imaging of atherosclerosis in a session on Monday (Imaging of Atherosclerotic Plaques - Newer Trends and Developments). I plan to cover PET imaging of atherosclerosis in depth. My co-speakers (Prof Zahi Fayad, Prof Jagat Narula and Prof Kaufman) will cover CT, MRI and ultrasound and this promises to be an in depth view of both current practice and likely direction of vascular imaging.

I plan to attend Hotline session where the full STAR trial results will be presented - this study administered intra-coronary stem cells to over 180 heart failure patients. Although some data has been published already, the long term effects of this therapy, particularly on mortality and quality of life are potentially of large clinical impact.

There are also several LIVE sessions that look outstanding - particularly the rapid assessment of atherosclerosis session from Liege on 29th August (IMT, EF and Calcium score).

Controversies in Cardiac CT promises to be an explosive session, with battles over calcium scoring in symptomatic subjects (should we?) and radiation concerns.

I always look forward to high tech sessions and there is one that I will attend on robotic surgery in both atrial fibrillation ablation and CABG.

So join me in either attending in person or remotely via this blog, twitter, facebook and our daily conference updates from Stockholm.

What sessions are you particularly looking forward to? Do you think the coverage on medical media is now so great that it's less important to attend in person?