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.

The 19^th ECCO Intensive Course for Trainees (previously named IBD Intensive Advanced Course) designed for residents, fellows in gastroenterology and junior faculty will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark, on July 7, 2021, immediately prior to our next Congress. We are pleased to inform you that the preliminary programme for this course is already available.

At the 16^th Congress of ECCO in Copenhagen, the Nurses of ECCO (N-ECCO) will host the educational activity for IBD Nurses, N-ECCO School, for the 12^th time. ECCO intends to give nurses, who might be still in training and have an interest in IBD, the possibility to attend an IBD-focused course. The ultimate aim of this programme is to improve nurse education throughout Europe.

The educational programme of the 16^th Congress of ECCO starts 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!

The Scientific Programme of the 16^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, July 8-10, 2021, 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.

Register now and seize the opportunity to hear current and relevant studies from international experts in IBD!

Dietary advice in the management of IBD has evolved in recent years from having gastrointestinal symptom reduction as a goal to a more pathogenesis-focussed approach [1–4]. At present, dietary recommendations in adult Crohn’s Disease (CD) are limited to increasing dietary fibre by means of fruit and vegetables and decreasing processed foods [1]. The nutrition debate has long divided adult and paediatric CD care, from international guidelines all the way through to service provision arrangements, with growth failure being a common feature in paediatric CD and dietetic support being a mainstay of care in many children’s hospitals [5–7].