Dear friends and colleagues,

We wish you all a warm welcome to the 46^th Annual Meeting of the Association for Paediatric and Congenital Cardiology.

The local Organizing Committee, chaired by Professor Alpay Celiker, in collaboration with the AEPC Council has produced the scientific programme, which is in this book. We hope that you will find it stimulating. More than 613 abstracts were received from 44 different countries. The abstracts have been reviewed by a large panel of experts within the field of congenital cardiology. On behalf of the Organizing Committee and the Council, we acknowledge the reviewers’ important scientific task and thank them for their important contribution.

Approximately 80% of the submitted abstracts have been accepted for oral presentations or posters. As in previous years, the AEPC and JSPCCS Young Investigator's Award will be made during the meeting, and three prizes will also be awarded for the best posters.

The scientific programme covers a wide range of congenital cardiology. Plenary sessions deal with management strategies in neonatal emergencies, common arterial trunk, imaging, intervention and hereditary arrhythmias. Sessions proposed by the Working Groups alone or in collaboration with each other include fetal diagnosis of heterotaxy, postoperative dysrhythmias, ventricular septal defect in adulthood and controversies in coarctation. Paediatric pulmonary hypertension will be covered in two sessions. A joint session will be held between the GUCH and the psycho-social Working Groups and another joint session will be held by the Genetics and Basic Science Working Groups on hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The WG Preventive Cardiology, founded last year in Granada, will hold its first session; “Why do we need prevention?”

The AEPC Annual Meeting gives an excellent opportunity to meet friends and colleagues involved in the field of congenital cardiology from all over the world. The beautiful city of Istanbul with its unique location close to the Bosporus and situated on the European and the Asian continents forms the ideal background for a highly successful meeting. We look forward to welcoming you in Istanbul.