“This meeting is more than just a conference—it’s a community. And it’s dedicated to pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in the neurovascular space,” says Alexandra Czap (University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, USA), discussing the upcoming Society of Vascular and Interventional Neurology (SVIN) annual meeting (20–22 November, San Diego, USA) with NeuroNews.
As chair for the 2024 iteration of the meeting, Czap has attempted to ensure that its theme of ‘Forward Together’ is reflected throughout a three-day programme featuring clinical data, innovation, debates and case presentations. According to Czap, the Forward Together theme is an attempt to emphasise the multidisciplinary nature of the field of cerebrovascular disease and of the SVIN itself, with the inclusion of stroke neurologists, neurocritical care clinicians, neurohospitalists, nurses and advanced practice providers (APPs) alongside its core membership of endovascular and neurointerventional physicians.
“If you’re passionate about making a difference in the field, I think the SVIN annual meeting really is the place to be, whether you’re a trainee or a seasoned expert,” she adds, highlighting teamwork and shared knowledge as important drivers of progress in the neurovascular space.
In Czap’s view, alongside the society’s continued growth and year-on-year increase in attendee numbers, it is important that the SVIN’s annual meetings remain somewhat “personal” and provide a sense of community that is not always feasible for larger conferences.
“I joined the SVIN when I was a resident and, when I went to my first SVIN meeting, there were fewer than 300 people at the entire [conference],” she recalls. “It was a small meeting. I still remember walking in and thinking: ‘Every expert you want to meet is just sitting next to you’. It was such an intimate conference, and I wanted to retain that this year and I hope we continue to retain that going forward.”
Czap is also keen to draw attention to a “brand new” collaboration between the SVIN and the Stroke Live Course (SLICE) group, and a series of live cases and interactive workshops set to take place at the SVIN meeting later this month.
“Those workshops will have a ratio of three trainees to one faculty member, which is unheard of,” she explains. “You always go to these larger meetings with 5,000 or 6,000 attendees, and you don’t get the kind of one-on-one networking that you would want with a KOL [key opinion leader] or top expert in the field.”
This aspect of the programme will provide an opportunity for audience participation, as well as showcasing the multidisciplinary, diverse environment the SVIN is seeking to create—even within a single session—as interventional neuroradiologist Vincent Costalat (Montpellier, France), neurologist Ashutosh Jadhav (Phoenix, USA) and neurosurgeon Shahid Nimjee (Columbus, USA) take to the stage as moderators.
“It’s the first time the SVIN has ever done something like this,” Czap adds. “People really enjoy those interactive cases, and it’s a great way to highlight the educational content that SLICE offers to its worldwide audience. We see this as a launching point for a great collaboration for many years to come.”
SVIN 2024 will, of course, also see a significant amount of clinical data presented for the first time. Prominent studies from which late-breaking, primary results will be shared during Friday’s plenary session include MEMBRANE—the latest of several randomised trials evaluating liquid embolic-based middle meningeal artery (MMA) embolisation in chronic subdural haematoma (cSDH) treatment—and RESCUE-ICAS, which is assessing the role of adjunctive stenting alongside mechanical thrombectomy in large vessel occlusion (LVO) strokes caused by intracranial stenosis. In addition, speakers are set to deliver initial updates from a host of other neurointerventional studies, including ATHENA, CHESS, COMMAND, DIRECT, DONE SYMPLE, ESCAPE-MeVO, MOSTE, PICASSO, RAISE and SEAL-IT.
Regarding the aforementioned ‘late-breakers’, Czap notes a concerted attempt to ensure a wide variety of study types are featured—with haemorrhagic disease being addressed by SEAL-IT, thrombolytic drugs by RAISE, neurointervention by PICASSO, and even systems of care by DIRECT. Decisions over which trials to exhibit in this session and elsewhere on the programme were not easy; Czap relays that SVIN reviewers received a “record-breaking” number of submissions with 2024 seeing almost double the number of abstracts compared to last year’s meeting.
“There was tough competition, and I do think this is going to be reflective of the growth of the conference this year in terms of the number of people attending,” she says. “Attendees look forward to the trials and, at the end of the day, these conferences are about the science and where the field is going. It’s an area of focus that we want to highlight and close the meeting with.”
One of Czap’s missions over the past 12 months has been to try to make the SVIN annual meeting one of the premier events in the calendar for stroke and the neurosciences. Making SVIN 2024 a “truly hybrid” meeting—for the first time—is likely to be a key driver of this, with sessions being livestreamed and available to view online across all three days, in addition to the conference’s regular in-person offering.
Czap hopes that these efforts will help to open up the meeting’s educational and scientific content to audiences far beyond just the USA. And, with only a matter of days to go until this year’s meeting, Czap and her colleagues’ attempts to further globalise the SVIN appear to have been successful, with clinicians, trainees and industry members from more than 40 countries set to attend.
Last but not least, Czap touches on ‘SVINnovation’, which is returning to the agenda for a third consecutive year but has never before featured so markedly on the programme. In her view, this Wednesday evening session will play a vital role in “launching SVIN into the neurotechnology space”.
“The pace of innovation can be significantly accelerated by providing our members with tools and assistance that can transform their novel ideas for improvements in patient care into a reality,” Czap comments. “Many are lacking the tools to establish certain foundations. After obtaining IP [intellectual property], what’s next? We’re physicians, and the majority of us have not been to business school.”
SVINnovation will encapsulate a 1.5-hour session featuring a number of business pitches followed by a two-hour reception providing—in Czap’s view—a “fantastic opportunity” for budding pioneers in the field to showcase their ideas, network with companies and gain valuable feedback. The initial session will open with renowned investment banker and best-selling author Oren Klaff delivering a keynote speech on turning promising ideas into commercial success, and close with a panel of judges awarding a US$100,000 grand prize to the best pitch they have heard.
“SVINnovation will bring SVIN onto the neurotechnology stage,” Czap concludes. “Almost one third of our members actually have their foot in the door already, through some kind of startup, or consulting for a company, or they are already a CEO [chief executive officer], so it’s a great way to expand our society and its membership as well as being part of a space that, historically, a lot of societies have taken a back seat on.”
