Heart health is set to get a boost as the largest conference of cardiac specialists in Europe joins forces with the Singapore equivalent.

EuroPCR (Paris Course on Revascularisation), which attracts more than 11,000 delegates, has partnered the National Heart Centre Singapore (NHCS) to launch AsiaPCR-SingLIVE, a three- day cardiology conference which began yesterday at Suntec Convention Centre.

Singapore LIVE is an annual conference which has been running since 1989 and attracts more than 1,000.

Associate Professor Koh Tian Hai, medical director of NHCS, said: 'In Europe they have a lot of new technologies and they are the first in the world to have them. In Asia we are relatively new in the game in terms of doctors with technical skills so we will get the opportunity to learn from our European colleagues.'

Professor Jean Marco, course director of EuroPCR and the new conference, said in order to develop global guidelines on heart health care, there needs to be a 'deep knowledge' of the culture and diseases of the Asia-Pacific region as it may vary in different ethnicities.

Prof Koh said an example of this is found in diabetic Asian patients - their blood vessels become smaller than those of Western patients, which may change the way they are treated.

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