Round-up of Day One of #ESCP2022

After two years apart with Covid-19 restrictions seeing the society hold virtual conferences, there was clear excitement in the air on day one of #ESCP2022. Over 1,500 members met in Dublin, Ireland, with others tuning in virtually for this hybrid 17th Annual Congress.

With a raft of events to attend, from scientific sessions, guidelines sessions and educational sessions, to joint symposiums, research symposiums and training courses, delegates engaged in some lively discussions and listened in on expert speakers over the day.

Round up 22 Sep 1

Things started off with the Ultrasound Course, with an anorectal and pelvic floor ultrasound workshop. Giulio Santoro (Italy) and Anders Mellgren (US) led the introduction before brilliant international speakers took the floor to discuss topics from the Normal Ultrasound Anatomy of The Anal Canal (Alejandra Perez-Tamayo, US) to The Role of Ultrasound in Staging of Rectal Cancer (Anders Mellgren, US).

The following session covered International Trial Results. Chaired by Charles Knowles (UK), Thomas Pinkney (UK) and Zoe Garoufalia (UK) the session heard updates from the trials including STAR-TREC (Hans de Wilt, Netherlands), MIRCAST (Marcos Gomez Ruiz, Spain) and SUNRRISE (Tom Pinkney, UK), with some eye-opening findings across the board shared with the day’s gripped audience.

Next up, Gaetano Luglio (Italy) discussed Anal Fissures, Baljit Singh (UK) Acute Diverticulitis and Roland Scherer (DE) Rectal Prolapse in a fascinating trio of talks in the morning’s education session.

With sessions well underway, it became time for the official opening ceremony and president’s address, where Klaus Matzel shared a warm welcome to the hundreds who had travelled to be in Dublin for three days of dedicated expert colorectal talks.

Y-ESCP then held their Lunch With Professor/Mentor symposium, with Neil Smart (UK) covering What a Mentor Can Do For You and New Ways Of Mentoring Neil Smart (UK), before Emma Carrington (UK) took to the stage to give a talk on Transition from Trainee to Fellow and from Consultant to Mentor before a final informative discussion of Challenges in Training, Working, Conducting Research, led by senior mentors: Baljit Singh (UK), David Zimmermann (Netherlands), Gabriela Möslein (Germany), Klaus Matzel (Germany), Mónica Millán (Spain), Yasuko Maeda (UK), Nuha Yassin (UK), Miguel Pera (Spain).

The post-lunch scientific session featured a brilliant 10 surgical videos in a session chaired by Dieter Hahnloser (Switzerland), Oded Zmora (Israel). Videos ranged from Laparoscopy Assisted Colonoscopy (Ramy Shaalan, UK) to Redo Surgery for Recurrent Diverticulitis: A Video Vignette (Francesco Falbo, Italy) and Robotic Anterior Resection With Intracorporal Anastomosis in a Patient with Severe Obesity (Jim Khan, Switzerland).

Round up 22 Sep 2

Running alongside these videos in a parallel session were the Research Symposiums - Cohorts & Audits: Bridging the Gap with Observational Data, as well as Scientific Sessions covering the Biology of Colorectal Cancer.

A further four scientific sessions were held in the afternoon: Surgeons for Future, EuroSurg, Twelve Best Abstracts Part I and The Modern Colorectal Surgeon.

Esther Matey (UK), Setthasorn Ooi (UK) and Iva Jakaitytė (UK)’s talks delivering the results from the multicentre international CASCADE (CArdiovSCulAr outcomes after major abdominal surgery) study were a highlight for the audience. The study, aiming to improve understanding around the variability and adherence to risk reduction measures for postoperative cardiovascular complications following major abdominal surgery, delivered some clear conclusions, including:

  • Patients are more likely to have Venous Thromboembolism (VTEs) in in-patient settings (81%)
  • VTE events tended to be within the first 10 days post-operation
  • Pulmonary Embolisms (PE) are more prevalent than Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) post-operatively

This raised some lively discussion with the audience, as well as some poignant questions, including:

  • Why does such variability exist in the provision of VTE prophylaxis?
  • Do patients actually need to be on prophylaxis for such a long amount of time given that VTE events are minimal?
  • How can we prevent that 0.7% of VTEs that take place in hospital settings?

Delegates, brimming with knowledge at this stage in the day, were treated to a further four educational sessions: Best Publications of the Year, Trainee Video Session, Trainee Session: Meet the Expert and a Keynote Lecture Covering Notts- Nontechnical Skills Improving Outcomes By Improving Us.

Finishing off the jam-packed day, the ever-popular guidelines session kicked off alongside the joint symposium between ESCP and ECCO.

The guidelines session covered a review of guidelines for haemorrhoid treatment (Adele Sayers, UK) 17:35 S – Agree How Does It Help? (Monica Ortenzi, Italy), a presentation of guidelines for perianal fistula (Kevin Göttgens, Netherlands, Lillian Reza,UK) and finished with a case-based discussion with a panel and moderator together with education moderator.

Meanwhile, the ESCP / ECCO joint symposium delivered some brilliant talks including those about IBD surgery during pregnancy (Pär Myrelid, Sweden) as well as arguments in favour of early surgery in Ileocecal Crohn’s Disease (Christiane Buskens, Netherlands) and dedicated IBD Surgeons Alaa El-Husuna (Denmark).

For the latest updates from #ESCP2022, make sure you’re following @escp_tweets on Twitter.

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