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

Anti-tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) therapy is frequently used in the treatment of Crohn’s Disease (CD) and Ulcerative Colitis (UC) in both adult and paediatric patients. Nevertheless, primary or secondary treatment failure of anti-TNFα treatment is not uncommon [1]. Both primary and secondary treatment failures are attributed either to pharmacokinetic, pharmacodynamic and immunogenic factors or to adverse events in response to the specific agent [2]. In recent years, loss of response (LOR) during anti-TNFα treatment has commonly been approached through the use of therapeutic drug monitoring involving measurement of infliximab or adalimumab trough concentrations (TC) and anti-drug antibodies (ADAs). Therapeutic drug monitoring of anti-TNFα agents enables proper stratification of LOR into a specific type of LOR, with corresponding adjustment of treatment. In children, in line with findings in adults, it has consistently been shown that higher drug TC is associated with higher efficacy [3] and that LOR is most commonly attributable to either low TC or the development of anti-drug antibodies [4].

The educational programme of the 16^th Congress of ECCO is scheduled one week prior to the official start of the ECCO Congress and all educational courses take place from July 2-3, 2021. These activities target ECCO’s different interest groups including young gastroenterologists, surgeons, paediatricians, pathologists, IBD Nurses, dietitians, allied health professionals and scientists.

The scientific programme will be held from July 8-10, 2021 including Digital Oral Presentations. In addition we are pleased to announce that the titles of the abstract oral presentations are already included in the online programme.

An overview of these activities can be found below. In order to get more information please click on the respective course link. For ECCO'21 Virtual overlapping courses can be watched on-demand until end of October 2021. It is foreseen, that delegates who registered for educational courses and/or the scientific programme can claim their CME credits also for on-demand content. We encourage you to register at your earliest convenience.

We look forward to welcoming you at the 16^th Congress of ECCO Virtual!

Although the relationship between IBD and nutrition is of longstanding interest, the attention paid to it has increased dramatically in recent years, with the inclusion of nutritional interventions in ECCO Guidelines on both paediatric and adult Crohn’s Disease (and of course many other IBD guidelines), bespoke publications such as the ECCO perioperative dietary therapy topical review and a flowering of clinical interest in Crohn’s Disease-specific diets.

This clinical interest in nutritional issues in IBD is also reflected in the exceptional interest in a December 2020 educational article in the UEG Journal “Mistakes in…” series, namely “Mistakes in nutrition in IBD and how to avoid them” by the ECCO Members Joe Meredith, Kostas Gerasimidis and Richard Russell (ueg.eu/a/268). Basic and translational scientific studies of the pathogenesis of IBD have increasingly evaluated the role of nutrition and particularly its interaction with the microbiome.

The educational programme of the 16^th Congress of ECCO is scheduled one week prior to the official start of the ECCO Congress and all educational courses take place from July 2-3, 2021. These activities target ECCO’s different interest groups including young gastroenterologists, surgeons, paediatricians, pathologists, IBD Nurses, dietitians, allied health professionals and scientists.

The scientific programme will be held from July 8-10, 2021 including Digital Oral Presentations.

An overview of these activities can be found below. In order to get more information please click on the respective course link. For ECCO'21 Virtual overlapping courses can be watched on-demand until end of October 2021. It is foreseen, that delegates who registered for educational courses and/or the scientific programme can claim their CME credits also for on-demand content. We encourage you to register at your earliest convenience.

In addition we are pleased to present already the preliminary programme of the 17^th Congress of ECCO in Stockholm  February 23-26, 2022 below.

We look forward to welcoming you at the 16^th Congress of ECCO Virtual!

Nuha Yassin  © Nuha Yassin

Ignacio Catalán-Serra © Ignacio Catalán-Serra

Dear IBD colleagues and friends,

Warm greetings from the ECCO News Team at the beginning of 2021, after a very challenging year.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has affected everyone in one way or another, we at ECCO have been adapting to the new circumstances.  The ECCO Team have been working hard to continue to uphold the highest standards of care for IBD patients and to provide high-quality research, education and training opportunities.

We have some important announcements to make. Due to the uncertainty over the COVID-19 situation in Europe and around the world, the ECCO Governing Board, in collaboration with the ECCO Office, have taken the very important decision to move from a face-to-face ECCO’21 Congress to a virtual ECCO’21 Congress in order to be able to guarantee deliverability and ensure safety for our ECCO Colleagues and Friends.

Since the first reports in Wuhan, China in December 2019, the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has resulted in over 40 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 globally with over 1 million deaths within just 10 months. Economies have been shattered, routine healthcare has been severely disrupted, and restrictions have been imposed on travel and social and family life in a previously unthinkable manner.

The educational programme of the 16^th Congress of ECCO is scheduled prior to the official start of the ECCO Congress and courses take place from July 7-9, 2021. 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.

We look forward to seeing you in Copenhagen!

Nuha Yassin  © Nuha Yassin

Ignacio Catalán-Serra © Ignacio Catalán-Serra

Dear IBD colleagues and friends,

Warm greetings from the ECCO News Team as we head towards the end of this challenging year.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has affected everyone in one way or another, we at ECCO have been adapting to the new circumstances.  The ECCO Team has been working hard to continue to provide not only the best standards of care for IBD patients but also high-quality research, education and training opportunities.

ECCO has taken up the challenge of organising yet another top quality meeting, which on this occasion will be held a little later than our usual conference dates. We would like to invite you to the 16^th Congress of ECCO in Copenhagen in July of 2021, during the beautiful Danish summer!

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

Shaji Sebastian  © 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.