Laurent Peyrin-Biroulet © ECCO

Dear ECCO Family,

We missed you! Believe me, we did our best. The ECCO Office, the ECCO Governing Board and the Organising Committee had to adapt to this virus and this last minute change in the format of our congress was not easy to deal with. The educational programme was held virtually and was very successful! In the last two years, we learned that education can be done virtually and all speakers were well trained to teach using these new tools.

I. Catalán-Serra © I. Catalán-Serra

Dear friends of ECCO News,

A new season has started for the ECCO Family and we have great news from the Editorial Board of ECCO News!

Our editorial team, led by Chief Editor, Alessandro Armuzzi, has been expanded for the period 2022–2025, with the addition of two highly qualified ECCO Colleagues, Brigida Barberio and Spyros Siakavellas, who will join the current Associate Editors, Nuha Yassin and Ignacio Catalan-Serra.

Welcome to the team!

Our aim is to work together to provide the ECCO Community with consistently interesting content on the research, education and social activities that are happening within ECCO. Our new team is committed to continuing to improve the scope and quality of the content of the journal in the coming years and is keen to hear from you, so please do get in touch!

Alessandro Armuzzi © Alessandro Armuzzi

Brigida Barberio © Brigida Barberio

Spyros Siakavellas © Spyros Siakavellas

Dear IBD colleagues and Friends,

As COVID-19 restrictions persisted in most European countries and, indeed, beyond Europe, we were forced to admit at the last minute that our plans to meet in Vienna from February 16–19, 2022 for the 17th Congress of ECCO were not feasible, and that, as with the ECCO 2021 Congress, the meeting would have to be held virtually. Our aim has always been to host an in-person conference to allow the whole ECCO Community to meet and interact physically, to absorb the high-quality Congress content delivered through our wonderful keynote speakers, oral presentations, educational workshops and posters, and on that basis to improve research, developmental activities, collaborations and friendships in the field of Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Despite the challenges posed by the circumstances, we were very excited to have all our ECCO Family virtually onboard again, ready to play their part in “Navigating the Oceans of IBD”, which was the theme of the Congress.

The 17^th Congress of ECCO Virtual – Inflammatory Bowel Diseases 2022, held on February 16-19, 2022, attracted a total number of 5,892 delegates from 103 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’22 Virtual Congress.

ECCO Congress participation 2006-2022 © ECCO

Sebastian Zeissig  © ECCO

Dear ECCO Members and Friends, 

ECCO has established Fellowships, Grants and Travel Awards to encourage and support young physicians in their careers and to promote innovative research in IBD.   

Sebastian Zeissig  © ECCO

One of the main goals of ECCO is to promote IBD-related basic and clinical research as well as to foster interaction and productive collaboration among European research groups working in the IBD field. To achieve this goal, ECCO supports numerous funding schemes with different scopes including ECCO Fellowships, Grants, and Travel Awards.

Isabelle Cleynen  © ECCO

This year we celebrated the 10th edition of the SciCom Workshop. What better way to do this than by looking ahead at future therapeutic IBD targets?

To set the scene, Marc Ferrante took us through the limitations of current IBD therapies, including the therapeutic ceiling, lack of information on niche indications (e.g. anal fistula, pouchitis), drugs that become available despite many remaining questions, and safety and economic aspects. However, there is a bright future ahead, with many opportunities to explore, such as the need for novel drugs with better efficacy, thinking beyond anti-inflammatory drugs, head-to-head trials, using drugs more efficiently, considering other aetiological factors, precision medicine and more.

Shaji Sebastian © ECCO

The ECCO Congress offers an ideal opportunity to learn, share and interact. This was also the main purpose of the 6th Basic ECCO: EduCational COurse for Industry, held on Wednesday, February 16, 2022. The course aimed to provide corporate and non-corporate members who have recently entered the field of IBD with an introduction to IBD, focussing on the clinical essentials and ‘need-to-knows’. Despite the obvious challenges relating to the format and the pandemic, 34 registrants attended the course.

Shaji Sebastian  © ECCO

ClinCom Workshops are aimed at clinicians, surgeons and paediatricians and aim to provide an update on the latest clinical research trends in IBD. This year’s 8th ClinCom Workshop focused on two clinically relevant and practical topics.

Ravi Misra © Ravi Misra

The Epidemiological Committee (EpiCom) organised the 6^th EpiCom Workshop at the ECCO’22 Virtual Congress. The delegates were welcomed by EpiCom chair, Naila Arebi.

The opening presentation was a tandem talk by Naila Arebi and Valérie Pittet on core outcomes relevant to prognostic factors. The two different types of prognostic study, natural history and clinical course, were described, with identification of their strengths and weaknesses. Emphasis was placed on the importance of these studies in paving the way for personalised medicine by identifying high-risk groups and tailoring treatment accordingly. However, a significant limitation is the heterogeneity of outcomes, which limits comparison. Indeed, over 200 different outcomes have been described for Crohn’s Disease (CD) alone.