Charlotte Hedin © ECCO

Florian Rieder is currently an Associate Staff physician in the Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition as well as an Investigator in the Department of Inflammation and Immunity at the Cleveland Clinic in the USA. His area of interest is pathogenesis of intestinal fibrosis and trial endpoint development for testing anti-fibrotics in stricturing IBD patients. He received his medical degree from the LMU Munich and has worked in Germany, Switzerland and South Africa as well as the USA. 

Nuha Yassin © ECCO

Dear Y-ECCO Friends,

I hope that this Members’ Address finds you all well and that you’re enjoying the beautiful autumn colours. Alas, this will be the last time that I address you as Y-ECCO Chair, as I will be stepping down from this position at the next ECCO Congress (2019, Copenhagen). It is with the greatest pleasure that I will then hand over the position of Chair to my colleague, Dominik Bettenworth (Münster, Germany), who has been an executive Y-ECCO Committee Member for the last 3 years. My colleague John Nik Ding will also be completing his 3-year Committee Membership and accompanying me down the path of the autumn leaves to regular ECCO Membership, thus making way for two new Y-ECCO Committee Members.

Gert de Hertogh © ECCO

Histopathologists have traditionally fulfilled three functions in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) care. First, they play a role in the initial diagnosis, together with gastroenterologists, endoscopists and radiologists. Second, they establish a differential diagnosis at clinical flares of the disease, resolving the question of whether there is reactivation of the IBD, a superinfection or an unrelated pathology. Third, they are involved in the screening of patients for premalignant lesions and cancer.

Antonino Spinelli © ECCO

Paulo Kotze © ECCO

Rochester, USA, September 18, 2018

On September 18, 2018, a very interesting multidisciplinary IBD meeting was held at the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minnesota, USA, with ECCO endorsement and involvement of several ECCO and S-ECCO Members. The meeting was organised by Amy Lightner and John Pemberton, and the focus was on the interaction between medical, endoscopic and surgical therapy of IBD. ECCO EduCom was represented by Peter Irving (UK) and Paulo Kotze (BRA), while several S-ECCO representatives also made significant contributions to the scientific programme, including Antonino Spinelli (ITA), Willem Bemelman (HOL), Andre D’Hoore (BEL) and Janindra Warusavitarne (UK). In addition, a number of experienced North American gastroenterologists and surgeons, such as Remo Panaccione (CAN), Sunanda Kane (USA), Miguel Regueiro (USA), Bo Shen (USA) and Phil Fleshner (USA), were involved in the programme.

Antonino Spinelli © ECCO

Paulo Kotze © ECCO

Barranquilla, Colombia

Last August, during the Colombian national congress of colorectal surgery, the 5th S-ECCO International IBD Workshop took place in the city of Barranquilla, Colombia. The programme was developed by S-ECCO and the workshop was held over one and a half days during the 3-day Colombian congress. Several current and previous ECCO Committee Members were involved in the programme: Willem Bemelman (HOL), ECCO Secretary; Antonio Lopez San-Roman (SPA), EduCom Chair; Marc Ferrante (BEL), ClinCom Chair; Paulo Kotze (BRA), EduCom Member; Janindra Warusavitarne (UK) and Andre D’Hoore (BEL). Other international guests, including Phil Fleshner (USA), Stephan Holubar (USA), Sergio Araujo (BRA) and Fabio Teixeira (BRA), also made substantial contributions to the programme. The faculty was completed by experienced Colombian gastroenterologists and colorectal surgeons and worked together in an outstanding scientific atmosphere.

Marjo Campmans-Kuijpers © ECCO

Although Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) has been historically associated with underweight and malnutrition, rates of obesity have been rising in patients with IBD, as in the general population. Nowadays, 15%–40% of adults with IBD are obese, and an additional 20%–40% are overweight [1]. Obesity is independently associated with higher disease burden and costs of hospitalisation in patients with IBD [2].

Kay Greveson © ECCO

The ECCO IBD Nurse Education Programme was introduced in 2018. Prior to embarking on the development of the programme, N-ECCO undertook a survey regarding the IBD nurse role in 2014 and found very large variation across Europe, with the role still being in its infancy in some countries. The level of education also varied. A scoping exercise was done to see whether there was a need for an educational programme. A total of 140 responses were obtained from a mix of clinical IBD nurses, nurses who reported that they cared for patients with IBD but whose role was not specifically IBD care, and research nurses. There was overwhelming agreement on the need for this type of programme and over 60% said that they had no accredited IBD course available to them. In all countries the largest provider of IBD training was the pharmaceutical companies. 

Tim Raine © ECCO

The generation of expert guidelines to assist and guide management decisions for patients living with IBD lies at the heart of the mission of ECCO. This makes GuiCom a very busy Committee within ECCO. Additionally, as many will be aware, GuiCom has moved towards using the GRADE methodology for future guidelines projects wherever appropriate. Whilst this will undoubtedly improve the quality and accountability of our guidelines, it is clear that the introduction of GRADE methodology comes at a cost in terms of the significant extra effort that will be demanded of all guideline participants and committee members.  

November 16, 2018

On November 16, the 60th ECCO Educational Workshop took place in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, with the participation of Antonio López San Román (Spain) and Henit Yanai (Israel) as representatives of ECCO along with other speakers from the Canary Islands such as Laura Ramos, Daniel Ceballos, José Miguel Marrero and Mariela Braithwaite as well as Ana Catarina Rego (Portugal).

October 9, 2018

The 59th ECCO Educational Workshop was held in Montevideo, Uruguay, on October 9, 2018. The workshop was a pre-congress course during the national Uruguayan congress of gastroenterology (Gastroendo 2018), at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Montevideo.