Thank you very much for your continuous understanding and generous cooperation with CCT. Last year, CCT has successfully finished with over 5,000 attendees from inside and outside Japan. We have broadcasted live demonstrations from 9 domestic and 1 overseas sites and operated 37 PCI, 12 EVT and 3 TAVI cases during 3 days. These cases (especially coronary cases) have been reviewed mainly by hosting physicians in the Special Program, “CCT Live Playback Session” and been discussed with guest physicians and audiences. This was the original attempt of CCT, and we examined one case carefully and thoroughly from the CCT spirits’ point of view. It will also be planned as this year’s special program along with “Live Case Pre-discussion Session” every morning.

We had a participation of more than 1000 people from outside Japan and held many partnership sessions with meetings and organizations from Korea, China, Taiwan, India, Thailand and the Middle East last year. This year, we will expand these sessions to wider areas.

In addition to CTO, this year’s live demonstrations intend to broadcast the most challenging lesions such as LMT, bifurcation, and calcification. The highlights of the live demonstrations at CCT are to show how to create a treatment strategy, how to tackle with an unexpected situation as an expert, and how to overcome the situation in order to obtain the best result against complex lesions. This is also a mission of CCT.

It has been 25 years since Dr. Osamu Katoh, one of our supervisory directors, conducted a complex PCI live demonstration, which is the roots of the CCT, with Dr. Takahiko Suzuki and the late Dr. Hideo Tamai in the small auditorium of Osaka Medical Center for Cancer and Cardiovascular Diseases. There they worked on the complex PCI with all their efforts and exchanged enthusiastic discussion in the environment with very few devices. During this quarter of the century, the devices and techniques for catheter intervention have greatly advanced, and it has helped to be compatible with more complex lesions and pathology. As this year's theme, we will continuously develop the medical art and would like to share this with worldwide colleagues.

In addition, we will put an emphasis on imaging this year. Imaging is a must on the treatment of structural heart diseases as well as on coronary artery treatment. Also, information gained from a variety of images decides the accurate treatment strategy and provides the best result. Therefore, imaging modalities are essential elements these days and we will direct a spotlight on this topic this year too.

By sharing the current situation and the latest knowledge of cardiology, mainly of catheter interventions, we hope the meeting will offer a place for physicians who try to improve their skills every day to solve their issues and find new ones. We promise to provide opportunities for everyone attending CCT to learn from their own standpoint. In closing, we would like to express our sincere gratitude for all people involved and ask for your cooperation for the success of this meeting.