Complex Aortic Surgery in Times of EVAR

Prof. Xavier Berard is a vascular surgeon, consultant in the department of Vascular Surgery in Bordeaux University Hospital since 2010 where he is working together with Prof. Eric Ducasse, head of the vascular surgery department and aortic center. He is also a full Professor of Vascular Surgery in the University of Bordeaux since 2016. Prof. Berard is board certified from the French College of Vascular and Endovascular Surgeons since 2008 and from the European Society for Vascular and Endovascular Surgery (FEBVS exam) since 2010. He has been an examiner of the FEBVS exam since 2014, reviewer of the European Journal of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery since 2016, and a board member since 2017. Lastly, he is a member of the ESVS guideline committee for vascular graft infection and participated in 55 publications indexed in PubMed. His personal surgical interest is focused on redo aortic surgery, infections in vascular surgery, EVAR ex-plantation and biomaterials.

Morad Sallam, MD, is a consultant vascular and endovascular surgeon at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and an honorary senior lecturer at King's College London with a special interest in complex aortic aneurysm repair and redo aortic surgery. He is also the lead for paediatric vascular surgery. Morad graduated from Cairo University Medical School in 2003 with honours. He then completed his advanced vascular surgery training in the UK as a senior clinical fellow at Barts Health, Imperial College, St Mary's Hospital, and Guy's and St Thomas'. He was granted his MSc in 2008 and MD in 2012, carrying out research on vascular injuries in neck trauma and the use of sclerotherapy in the management of varicose veins respectively. He then became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons and was appointed as a consultant vascular and endovascular surgeon at Guy's and St Thomas' in February of 2013. He is the lead for cardiovascular undergraduate education and vascular surgery postgraduate education, as well as the programme director for vascular surgery training. He is a faculty member of the Royal college of Surgeons' Advanced Vascular Skills course and the European Society of Vascular Surgery, among other national and international vascular surgery courses. He is currently co-leading a highly specialised multidisciplinary programme for the management of aortic infections, for which Guy's and St Thomas' has now become a national referral centre and one of the largest centres internationally with a dedicated service for this challenging pathology. He also runs the aorto-vascular multidisciplinary clinic along with the cardiac surgeons, managing patients with extensive and complex thoracic aortic pathology. He is a faculty member of the transformation program 'Care Redesign', teaching Harvard Business School case studies to clinical teams as part of service improvement and clinical pathways redesign projects. He is also the clinical lead for some of the trust international work and overseas projects.

Ross Milner, MD, is an internationally recognized expert in vascular surgery. He specializes in the treatment of complex aortic diseases. Dr. Milner has been the primary investigator on numerous endovascular device trials. He is the co-national principal investigator for the GREAT registry. He examined the use of remote pressure sensor monitoring for surveillance after endovascular aortic aneurysm repair as part of a research fellowship that he completed at the University Medical Center of Utrecht as the Marco Polo Fellow of the Society for Vascular Surgery. Since that time, he has been involved with many studies that evaluate endovascular devices for both thoracic aortic disease and abdominal aortic aneurysms. A dedicated educator and mentor, Dr. Milner teaches medical students, residents and fellows about vascular disease management, including the use of aortic stents. He has received numerous awards for his teaching. In addition, he is frequently invited to speak at national and international conferences on vascular surgery and aortic aneurysms. He has been recognized as the first master clinician of the Bucksbaum Institute for Clinical Excellence. A prolific author, Dr. Milner has written more than 100 abstracts and manuscripts, as well as more than 20 reviews and chapters in leading textbooks on endovascular therapies. In addition, he serves on the editorial board for several prominent scientific journals, including The European Journal of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery, Vascular Disease Management, and Endovascular Today, and reviews manuscripts for inclusion in many peer-reviewed journals, such as the American Journal of Surgery and the Journal of Vascular Surgery.