Dear E-AHPBA members and PG Course participants,
I would like first of all to congratulate and thank all the E-AHPBA members who came to Athens in January and delivered an excellent and up-to-date Gold Seal Post Graduate Course for Pancreas Cancer Surgery and Treatment.
A special thank also to all the participants who travelled to attend this course and honoured us with their presence. I hope the course lived up to their expectations.
Faculty was all-star game, with four E-AHPBA presidents being present and giving fantastic lectures about fighting pancreas cancer. Professor Bassi gave a state-of-the-art lecture about the risk of developing cancer of the pancreas cystic lesions and how to manage them. Bringing to us all the Verona wisdom on this subject; which is one of the greatest worldwide, and also talked about the possibilities of local treatments of pancreas cancer when surgery is not an option.
Professor Dervenis talked about the achievements of the modern pancreas cancer surgical resection, giving enlightening insights regarding the surgical technique.
Professor Conlon spoke about the gold standard of the management of the pancreas cystic lesions and also gave very helpful tips on how to prepare at best for the UEMS exams with simulation of clinical cases discussion.
Professor Martin Smith, a past E-AHPBA president and now president of the IHPBA, gave an in-depth lecture on the European Guidelines for the surgical treatment of the Cystic Pancreas Tumours and on the evaluation of the PD specimen-the role of R0 resection for cancer.
Heavyweight professors of surgery like Professors Siriwardena (who was also the co-convenor), Coker, Friess and Adam gave their insights regarding difficult subjects like how to reconstruct after pancreatico-duodenectomy, the IPMNs pathology, overview of ERAS trials, surgeons point of view on imaging and the minimal invasive approaches for pancreas cancer surgery.
Furthermore, esteemed colleague from the University of Verona, dott. Marchegiani made fantastic presentations on how to manage complications after pancreatectomy and an overview of the EPAC trials.
There was also strong representation of the local scientific presence on very important topics: Professor Gazouli from the University of Athens gave a very up-to-date and modern speech about the molecular biology of pancreas cancer. Dr Triantopoulou presented eloquently the fundamentals of pancreas imaging and Dr Agalianos gave an excellent overview of the current definitions of borderline resectable pancreatic cancer.
Athens 2019 Post Graduate Course on pancreatic cancer was an in-depth view of the current treatments available, it was explanatory and gave important insights from physicians who have dedicated their careers to fighting this disease. It also gave a glimpse of the future, showing some important notions and foundations towards Precision Treatments.
I hope it achieved the purpose of helping and sharing some important, key core knowledge to all colleagues who attended this course.
Ioannis Passas
Council Chairs
