Laurent Peyrin-Biroulet © ECCO

Dear ECCO Family,

I hope you had a wonderful summertime and could escape the pandemic for a few days. First of all, I would like to thank everybody who attended ECCO’21 Virtual - we had a stunning 6,798 participants from 104 countries. Thanks to your unconditional support, the ECCO Congress is Europe’s most important event in the field of Inflammatory Bowel Disease. With 828 accepted abstracts, ECCO’21 once again presented the latest in science.

6,798 delegates attended the 16^th Congress of ECCO Virtual

The 16^th Congress of ECCO Virtual – Inflammatory Bowel Diseases 2021, held on July 2-3 & 8-10, 2021, attracted a total number of 6,798 delegates from 104 different countries. Since the inaugural ECCO Congress in 2006 in Amsterdam, at which there were 350 delegates, participant numbers have steadily increased, as shown in the graph below. Despite the COVID-19 outbreak in the beginning of 2020, we are happy that this high number of delegates had the chance to participate in the ECCO’21 Virtual Congress.

ECCO Congress participation 2006-2021 © ECCO

Ignacio Catalán-Serra © Ignacio Catalán-Serra

Nuha Yassin  © ECCO

Dear ECCO friends,

First, we would like to thank you all for making the 16^th Congress of ECCO Virtual a great success.

The Virtual Congress Platform worked very efficiently, allowing top-quality online scientific sessions with lots of interaction and discussions and the participation of a very high number of ECCO Members from all over the world. Our Scientific Programme this year was centered around the topic “IBD Precise”, highlighting new advances in pathogenesis, diagnostics and novel therapies that are enabling progress towards customised treatment for IBD patients.

Luckily, the current situation is allowing the ECCO Office Team to make the necessary preparations to hold the upcoming 17^th Congress of ECCO on-site in Vienna in February 2022. There, the usual high-quality scientific and educational content will be complemented by a fantastic social and networking programme.

For your convenience, below we provide summaries of the top 10 winning Digital Oral Presentations (DOP) from the 16^th Congress.

We wish you a great return from your holidays and look forward to meeting you in person in Vienna!

Best wishes,

Ignacio and Nuha

The Educational Programme of the 17^th Congress of ECCO starts prior to the official start of the ECCO Congress and courses take place from February 16-18, 2022. These activities target ECCO’s different interest groups including young gastroenterologists, surgeons, paediatricians, pathologists, IBD Nurses, dietitians, allied health professionals and scientists.

An overview of these activities can be found below. Please note that courses/workshops may run concurrently. As these educational activities have a limited capacity, we encourage you to register at your earliest convenience.

The Scientific Programme of the 17^th Congress of ECCO provides attendees the unique opportunity to learn from the world’s leading specialists in the field of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases. Held from Thursday to Saturday, February 17-19, 2022, the Scientific Programme is structured around basic science, translational medicine and clinical sessions. Additionally, it includes oral presentations of the 40 best abstracts of the Congress. The focus of all sessions is clinical practice founded on science with practical take home messages and, as every year, the congress registration fee includes access to all scientific sessions.

ECCO’22 Theme: Navigating the oceans of IBD

We look forward to welcoming you at the 17^th Congress of ECCO in Vienna!

Yves Panis © ECCO

Precision medicine in IBD 

The ninth edition of the SciCom Workshop, held during the 16^th Congress of ECCO, was dedicated to recent advances in "Precision medicine in IBD", covering different aspects from disease prevention to prediction of disease course and therapeutic responses and potential strategies for disease cure.

JAK-STAT-driven immunometabolism as a novel principle in the pathophysiology of Ulcerative Colitis

Janus kinase (JAK) inhibition is a novel therapeutic approach in the management of Ulcerative Colitis (UC). However, the role of JAK inhibition with respect to cell-specific immunometabolic properties is not known.

The overall aim of this multi-year research proposal is to generate deeper understanding of the interplay of JAK inhibition and immunometabolic properties in the intestinal mucosa at a cellular level and thereby to open up new avenues in biomarker development and novel targeted interventions in UC. This aim is being pursued by (i) identifying immunometabolomic signatures of JAK inhibition in UC patients using multi-omics analysis of longitudinal therapy response cohorts and (ii) modelling the impact of two metabolic principles, namely amino acide (e.g. tryptophan) and short-chain fatty acids (e.g. butyrate), on the efficacy of JAK inhibition in ex vivo organisms.

Laurent Beaugerie © ECCO

This year’s 4^th School for Clinical Trialists, organised by the ECCO Clinical Research Committee (ClinCom), offered an excellent opportunity to review all the key points of the balance between expected efficacy and potential risks of IBD drugs, in the contexts of both clinical trials and routine care.

The 5^th Advanced ECCO: EduCational COurse for Industry, organised by the Clinical Research Committee of ECCO (ClinCom), was one of the highlights of the educational programme during the ECCO’21 Congress and was held virtually, with live presentations and discussions. The course was aimed at our industry partners and had the broad goal of discussing the areas of IBD research of key importance in the immediate future. 

Nicolas Pierre © Nicolas Pierre

Blood proteins related to immunoregulation or cellular junctions reveal distinct biological profiles associated with the risk of short-term versus mid/long-term relapse in Crohn’s Disease patients stopping infliximab

In Crohn’s Disease (CD), anti-tumour necrosis factor α (TNFα) therapy can induce mucosal healing and stable remission. When this objective is achieved, treatment de-escalation may be considered for safety, economic and patient preference purposes. Indeed, chronic exposure to anti-TNFα has been linked to serious complications (e.g. lymphoma, infections, melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancers) [1–4], and this treatment is a burden for the healthcare system [5]. On the other hand, around 50% of CD patients relapse 1–2 years after stopping anti-TNFα [6]. Thus, this strategy cannot be proposed to every patient in remission; rather, decisions should be made on an individualised basis [6].

Take your study to the next level with the IBD National Study Group Meeting at the ECCO Congress

Uri Kopylov  © ECCO

One of the missions of the Clinical Research Committee of ECCO (ClinCom) is to facilitate innovative clinical research in the area of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD).

To promote international scientific collaboration among researchers from different European countries, ClinCom established the IBD National Study Group Meeting, which takes place at the annual ECCO Congress. With this great platform, ClinCom enables investigators to have their studies challenged and promoted at the same time. Before the meeting, investigators are invited to provide a study synopsis for their project, including background, design, objectives, outcome parameters, major inclusion and exclusion criteria, statistics and co-variates. Submitted projects are then reviewed by ClinCom and, if found feasible, discussed during the IBD National Study Group Meeting at the ECCO Congress.