Twenty years of interventional cardiac electrophysiology: Meeting future challenges with continuing innovations

The “Sixth International Symposium on Interventional Elec-trophysiology in the Management of Cardiac Arrhythmias”was held in Newport, Rhode Island on September 24–26,2010. This symposium commemorated a special landmark inclinical cardiac electrophysiology. Twenty years had elapsedsince the first in this series of symposia recognized interven-tional electrophysiology as a distinct scientific discipline. In1990,thissymposiumwastheveryfirst internationalmeetingdevoted exclusively to the fundamentals of science andclinical practice of interventional electrophysiology. Theumbrella of “interventional electrophysiology” gathered suchdiverse but fundamentally linked sciences of experimentalelectrophysiology, epidemiology, pharmacotherapy, cardiacpacing, defibrillation, catheter and surgical ablation, imaging,and clinical trials as applied to the management of cardiacarrhythmias. The crystallization of this discipline and thebreadthanddepthofscienceinthisfieldledtotheevolutionofa committed scientific journal devoted to it, the Journal ofInterventional Cardiac Electrophysiology. The meeting con-tinues a longstanding tradition of providing a scientificforum for experts from Europe and North America to presentfrontiers in research as well as critically evaluate develop-ments in interventional cardiac electrophysiology in ascientific forum. The presentations at this meeting are thebasisforaseriesofreviewarticlesthathavebeencriticallyacclaimed in past years and memorialized in print, initially intextbook form and more recently as special issues of theJournal of Interventional Cardiac Electrophysiology.This symposium’s scientific program was restructured tofocus on translational science, new technology, and therestructuring of clinical practice based on clinical trials inour field. Regenerative medicine, genomics, and molecularbiologic research into inherited or acquired heart rhythmdisorders assumed center stage in basic science presentations.Innovations in technology bought imaging methods in clinicalelectrophysiology into focus. New catheter navigation tech-nology, computed tomographic and magnetic resonanceimaging methods, intracardiac and three-dimensional echocar-diography, and essentials of clinical interpretation of theseimagingdatafortheinterventionalistboughtanewfrontierintoview, the “integrated” electrophysiologic laboratory. Newdevelopments in device and ablation therapy were reviewedin the context of evidence-based practice. The rise ofperformance standards and metrics for arrhythmia programs,impact of clinical trials, and registries on interventionalelectrophysiologic practice and outcomes research in clinicalelectrophysiologyfocusedthediscussionsonthepathaheadforthe interventional electrophysiologist.TheNewportsymposiumhasnowbeenmemorializedwiththe authors preparing state-of-the-art review articles for twospecial issues of the journal. The first issue encompassesadvances in basic and translation science, imaging, newtechnology and developing standards for patient follow-upand management, catheter and surgical ablation, and clinicaltrials in drug, device, and ablation therapies. Special issueslikethisonearenot possiblewithout the enormoussupport ofour authors and our editorial staff. We are grateful to theauthors for this serious effort to critically assess our current