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.

Christian Maaser © ECCO

While the ECCO Basic Imaging Workshop in collaboration with ESGAR had to be postponed until next year’s ECCO Congress due to the need to change to a virtual format at rather short notice, the 9th ECCO Ultrasound Workshop – Advanced in collaboration with ESGAR did take place and proved a big success, bringing together 114 colleagues from 34 countries, including not just European countries but also, for example, the United States, Uruguay, Singapore, Japan, Korea, India and Australia.

Kostas Karmiris © ECCO

The 20^th ECCO IBD Intensive Course for Trainees was held virtually on February 16, 2022 as part of ECCO’s educational programme. This is ECCO’s oldest and most established course. This year, a total of 115 participants from 34 countries from Europe and elsewhere attended the course and were offered a comprehensive update on IBD. The course focused on pivotal insights into the medical management of IBD patients in an interactive manner.

The second edition of the ECCO Postgraduate Course in IBD took place on February 17, 2022, on a virtual platform. The morning session reviewed patient management and treatment strategies, with contributions from numerous well-known speakers of ECCO, including the current and past presidents. 

Wladzia Czuber-Dochan © ECCO

The N-ECCO Chair, Susanna Jäghult, opened the 16^th N-ECCO Network Meeting by welcoming 171 nurses from around the world. This was the second virtual Congress due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The N-ECCO Research Forum takes place every other year and this year’s programme was designed to help nurses and other health-aligned professionals to better understand the different aspects of the research process.

Wladyslawa Czuber-Dochan opened the meeting and announced that the winner of the N-ECCO Research Grant for 2022 was Rosanna Comoretto from Torino, Italy.

Miriam Ganon © ECCO

The N-ECCO School ran for the first time in 2010. The aim of the School is to enhance the knowledge and expertise of nurses and dietitians who are new to IBD, enabling them to provide better quality care to IBD patients throughout Europe and beyond. In addition, the N-ECCO School has become a great networking opportunity for both nurses and dietitians, allowing them to share their experiences and plans for furthering their careers and demonstrating the importance of the MDT approach to IBD care.

Ana Ibarra  © ECCO

On the evening of Wednesday, February 16, nurses from several countries across Europe participated in our yearly N-ECCO National Representatives Meeting.

As N-ECCO Committee Member responsible for the National Representatives, I welcomed the attendees. An exchange of nurses every 2–3 years is greatly encouraged by N-ECCO, but many countries nevertheless retain the same National Representatives for more than 3 years. New people tend to mean new ideas, although some countries have different service setups and getting new representatives is sometimes difficult.