Yale Hosts Summit Meeting on Acute Aortic Diseases Nov. 1-2

Yale School of Medicine is hosting a two-day symposium Nov. 1-2 on diseases of the aorta, with a dedication to the late actor John Ritter, who died of an aortic dissection four years ago.

The “Summit on Acute Aortic Diseases: Lux et Veritas” will be held in Mary S. Harkness Auditorium at 333 Cedar Street. The organizer of the program is John Elefteriades, M.D., section chief of cardiothoracic surgery at Yale. The summit is open to the public. The cost is $695 for non-Yale employees and $200 for Yale employees.

The aorta is the largest artery in the body. It originates from the left ventricle of the heart, and brings oxygenated blood to all parts of the body. An aortic dissection, such as Ritter suffered, occurs when there is a tear in the wall of the aorta.

Ritter’s widow, actor Amy Yasbeck, will deliver a retrospective of his work at a dinner to be held Nov. 1 in the Presidents Room on the second floor of Woolsey Hall at the corner of Wall and College Streets. At the dinner, David Tilson, M.D., of St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital in New York will deliver the keynote lecture titled—“Aortic Diseases and Creativity: Is There a Link?” Tickets for the dinner are $50 and guests must pre-register.

The program also will include a keynote address by Denton Cooley, M.D., on “The Aorta and I: A Lifetime Relationship.” Cooley, of the Texas Heart Institute, performed the first human heart transplant on May 3, 1968.

Additional topics will include the genetics and other risk factors of aortic aneurysms; the difficulty of using imaging technologies to diagnose aortic disease; and the relationship between weight lifting and acute aortic dissection, among others.

The full program can be viewed at http://aorta.yale.edu under “News and Events.”

For more information and to pre-register for the dinner, please contact Marianne McCarthy at 203-785-2551.