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In this video, Bradley Knight, MD, Editor-in-Chief of EP Lab Digest, discusses highlights from Heart Rhythm 2024.

I am Brad Knight, Editor-in-Chief of EP Lab Digest. I want to speak about some of the great highlights of this year's annual Heart Rhythm Society meeting in Boston. It's an incredible meeting. For me, the highlights are seeing friends and former colleagues and fellows, and really being able to connect with people, whether it's other physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, or people from industry. So, the ability to get together and connect, I think we've all recognized after the COVID-19 pandemic, is very valuable. 

It seems very busy here at the meeting. From my understanding, there are over 9000 people in attendance this year, so I think they're back to pre-COVID levels. It's very well-attended in person. 

For me, the highlights of the meeting this year include the Shark Tank session related to the Get With The Guidelines-Atrial Fibrillation (AF) Registry that Jonathan Piccini and William Lewis have been doing on an annual basis. People compete for funding from the American Heart Association, and this year's presentations were some of the best we've ever had. We have to pick a winner that can be funded for that research, and this year it was a study looking at the guideline registry to look at the effect of obesity on AF, which is a really important topic now with these anti-obesity drugs. 

The program this year has also grown in terms of late-breaking clinical trials. These are very popular sessions. There are now 2 late-breaking clinical trial sessions for implantable devices, 2 sessions for ablation, and then sessions devoted just to science and technology. So, the late-breakers really have become a highlight of this meeting.

Other important sessions that I think that are exciting relate to new technology. The theme for me, I think, at this meeting is that we strive to keep things simple in the EP lab. We try to keep things efficient and simple from a patient care standpoint to keep procedures as safe and effective but as efficient as possible. With the growing emergence of all these new ablation tools with pulsed field ablation (PFA) becoming available, there are 2 commercially available products now for PFA and new PFA tools being developed by many companies, it's actually adding to the complexity of what we do, whether it's getting capital for these new generators, getting these new supplies and disposables on the contract with the value analysis committee. These complexities have become a real challenge as hospital costs have gone up and things like that. So, the meeting is exciting because of all this new technology. Never has the heart rhythm field been as exciting as it is right now, whether it's with AF ablation tools, whether it's with leadless pacing, extravascular defibrillators, and a lot of other therapies for patients with heart rhythm disorders. It's important to keep in mind we have to keep things simple, efficient, and cost effective. 

On Sunday, there is a fellows’ educational program for board preparation, which is also an important mission of the Heart Rhythm Society to educate our trainees.

So, again, I think the Heart Rhythm Society’s flagship jewel is this annual scientific session, and this year is really emblematic of their success.

The transcripts have been edited for clarity and length.