Dear Colleagues,
For many of our members the COVID pandemic has been horrendous for their patients, hospital and communities. For others, social distancing and the travel restrictions imposed by authorities have blunted the impact and “flattened the curve” with regards to new cases being admitted to hospital and the ICU. However, all of us have seen our clinical practice and family life altered beyond what could have been imagined a little over a month ago. But, we are coping. As I said before, our collegiality and training is our strength. Many of our colleagues have shown remarkable fearlessness and resilience as they have dealt with this pandemic. The Irish prime minister has said not all heroes wear capes. He is correct, some are HPB surgeons and wear scrubs!
In this current crises, E-AHPBA looks to support all its members. The Scientific and Research Committee under the guidance of Professors Lesurtel and Balakrishnan have developed a short survey to investigate how HPB centres are managing during the COVID pandemic. It will be sent by e-mail and made available on social media; we would be grateful if you could spend a few minutes to complete it.
We are also working with our colleagues at the IHPBA, AHPBA and A-PHPBA to create a registry which would compile data regarding operative activity on COVID positive patients. I believe that this registry has the potential to be a powerful tool and demonstrates the benefits of all regions working together. It is in the early stages of development but as soon as it is completed, we will be back in touch.
There will also be a discussion forum made available on the myHPB platform soon that will encourage conversation and the sharing of advice and practice. In the meantime, please keep in touch by using our social media platforms, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Finally, we are pleased to share some links to advice and guidelines for medical and surgical practices throughout this pandemic.
Keep safe, stay healthy and take care.
Kindest regards,
Kevin Conlon
President, E-AHPBA
The COVID-19 pandemic has already had a remarkable global impact, and while we appreciate that the experiences of our many members who are grappling with the consequences of this pandemic in their own settings will vary widely, we believe there will also be experiences and information which can be exchanged. We have therefore set up a discussion platform on myHPB for you to add questions, comments or just to share the challenges you are facing, and ask other members for their own advice or experience of how these may be overcome. We hope that in time this may develop into a wide ranging discussion on what the “new normal” may look like, but this is your forum, so we will see where the dialogue takes us.
You can view the discussion here – there is no need to log in to view but we encourage you to login to comment and share your story!
Please check the box at the top of the discussion to be notified when new posts are added. We encourage you to contribute to the discussion and to interact with other members of the HPB community who are also developing a response to this unprecedented global health crisis.
The Scientific & Research Committee of E-AHPBA, namely Dr Anita Balakrishnan, have recently conducted a survey on the practice of hepatopancreatobiliary surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This survey was in response to the inquiries from many of our members who are interested in how HPB surgery is being practised in other parts of Europe and Africa during the pandemic.
A presentation on the survey results by Scientific & Research Committee member and lead author Anita Balakrishnan has been placed on the myHPB COVID-19 discussion board.
We are delighted to advise that a paper had also been published in HPB, you can view the full text here.
Please use the myHPB discussion board if you have any questions for the authors of the survey or results.
We thank you all once again for your support and participation.
E-AHPBA are very pleased to endorse the recently launched IHPBA-COVID Registry.
The COVID-19 pandemic has already had a profound impact on HPB Surgery and our patients worldwide. The IHPBA-COVID Registry has been developed for IHPBA, AHPBA, A-PHPBA and E-AHPBA members to capture global data on HPB surgical activity on COVID positive patients.
The results of the data collection will be shown in a real-time summary which can be freely viewed here.
Contributors to the registry will also have access to a more detailed real time dashboard (view the Dashboard Example ).
The IHPBA-COVID registry is an essential tool to help members gain a better understanding of the consequences of COVID-19 on HPB surgical services and our patients. The success of this international registry relies on your participation and we urge our members across the globe to contribute.
Please register your centre here and you will be administered a password within 48 hours.
If you have any queries, please contact:
If you have any questions on the registration process, please email michelle@ihpba.org
If you have any technical questions on the registry please email admin@email.se
Public Health Guidelines
World Health Organisation – Information on the Corona-virus Disease (COVID-19) Pandemic
European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control – National Guidance resources for the public
Shared Surgical Resources and Guidelines
ESSO – Advice for Surgical Oncologists on Cancer Service Provision
EAES and SAGES – Recommendations Regarding Surgical Responses to COVID-19 Crisis
American College of Surgeons – COVID-19 and Surgery
SSO – Cancer Surgeries in the Time of COVID-19
National Advice and Guidelines from within the E-A Region
Royal College of Surgeons (UK & Ireland) – Guidance for surgeons working during the COVID-19 pandemic
Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland – Responding to COVID-19
Dutch Surgical Association (NVvH) – Pre-operative work-up for COVID-19
Spanish Society of Surgery – Recommendations in relation to surgery and COVID-19 – English / Spanish
French Surgical Journal – Strategy for the practice of digestive and oncological surgery during the Covid-19 epidemic – English / French
Thesaurus National De Cancerologie Digestive – Prise en charge des cancers digestifs en fonction de la situation épidémique COVID-19 (French)