China has a total of 60 million latent heart disease patients; however, among 8 million in need of cardiovascular surgery, only 80,000, or 10 percent, undergo necessary operations, according to the organizing committee of the 15th annual session of the Asian Society for Cardiovascular Surgery (ASCVS), which will be held in Beijing from May 17 to 20.

"There are 150,000 babies born with congenital heart disease every year," said Professor Wu Qingyu with Tsinghua University Hospital, one of the co-hosts of the meeting. "However, most of the sufferers don't receive proper treatment."

Statistics show that less than 20 hospitals perform more than 1,000 cardiovascular surgeries annually.

"Obviously, there exists a huge gap of medical technology and facilities between big hospitals and minor ones, developed cities and remote areas, even between doctors," Wu explained.

Another reason is that hospitals tend to treat patients with minor symptoms while refuse serious ones for fear of taking great risk.

"Serious and high risk patients have to travel a long way to big cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai, to seek effective treatment. Usually when they finally reach their destinations, they have missed the best time for a surgery, " he added.

Therefore, experts have called for establishment of a new diagnosis and treatment system for heart disease. Under the new system, physicians and surgeons will co-diagnose patients and work out a long term treatment and recovery plan together.

(China.org.cn by Huang Shan, May 16, 2007)