Dr Yasser Al-Ghamidi, the Director General of Health Affairs in Makkah region, inaugurated here on Monday evening the fourth annual conference on heart diseases and surgery as well as the exhibition organized on the fringes of the conference. The conference is organized by Jeddah-based King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center. Addressing the conference's inaugural ceremony, Dr Nasser Mehdi, the Head of the Heart Department at King Faisal Specialist Hospital, said 16.7 million death cases were reported at the world level in 2003 due to heart diseases. The conference, attended by a number of prominent Saudi physicians, will review the latest developments in the field of heart diseases.