New goals for ECCO (REACH) – What does it mean for ClinCom activities?

In the context of the ECCO REACH strategy, ClinCom would like to highlight some of the committee’s activities regarding the current and upcoming goals.

With the IIS Congress Abstract Awards and the IIS Registry Grant we aim to encourage innovative clinical research in IBD using registries as tools. Investigator-initiated studies (IIS) address day-to-day challenges in real-world patients. Data obtained from the studies may help to resolve unmet needs in the everyday diagnosis and treatment of IBD patients and therefore lead to improvements in the care of IBD patients in real-world scenarios.

The ClinCom Workshop has been designed for clinical trial coordinators, IBD Nurses, physicians and allied health professionals who are interested in clinical studies and science.
Highly clinically and scientifically experienced speakers at ECCO’24 gave lessons on IBD trials in general, explaining how to build a successful IBD study team and how to design and conduct new studies successfully.
With this workshop we aim to empower IBD teams to build study teams and to conduct and perform clinical studies in diverse countries. We try to emphasise that clinical studies are needed in every IBD centre, rather than just well-known IBD centres, in order to improve the quality of care for all IBD patients.

School for Clinical Trialists

This educational programme is recommended for clinical trial coordinators, IBD Nurses, physicians and allied health professionals who would like to start or improve their own clinical trials or who are interested in organising clinical IBD research and/or creating a global consortium for the investigation of clinical and scientific questions .
From building clinical research networks to performing clinical trials, reviewing regulatory issues across countries and planning clinical trials from first patient ‘in’ to last patient ‘out’, every clinical trial-related issue will be discussed. Highly experienced and well-known clinical researchers will provide useful hints and tools for building up your trial platform. The School enables participants to develop networks with investigators who know everything about trials and who provide tips on how to perform, plan and successfully publish clinical trials. This is a unique possibility to gain access to the best knowledge on clinical trials. The aim is to increase the interest in clinical science in order to improve diversity and quality in clinical trials.

IBD National Study Group Meeting

The IBD National Study Group Meeting was established in 2016 and has since been successfully held at every ECCO Congress. At the annual meeting, representatives of European IBD National Study Groups meet to exchange views and ideas on study projects and to support excellent scientific collaboration among study groups.   ClinCom provides free review of study proposals. Proposals supported by ClinCom are presented by a National Representative at ECCO Congresses. In the IBD National Study Group Meeting, each project is discussed and useful recommendations are made. After a successful second stage review by ClinCom and the ECCO Governing Board, ECCO provides support by calling for participation among the IBD Community to encourage the recruitment of centres.

Educational Course for Industry Partners

For a holistic approach to improve the care for our patients in all facets of their lives, it is also necessary to educate different stakeholders about unmet needs, clinical and scientific challenges and day-to-day work with IBD patients. The Educational Course for Industry Partners at ECCO’25 will provide insights and knowledge about registries and real-world evidence, combination or sequencing strategies in medication, choice of the right drug for the right patient

For the first time we will discuss access to medication and challenges across the globe with highly experienced and globally renowned clinicians from all parts of the world.

This will be a unique opportunity for industry partners to gain insights into different medical systems and challenges.

ECCO CONFER Cases is a COllaborative Network For Exceptionally Rare Cases. Its goal is to address diagnostic and therapeutic gaps in knowledge in rare and uncommon IBD cases, including rare infections, uncommon drug effects or side effects, rare IBD manifestations and infrequent disease manifestations. These cases are often reported in single or small case series. By joining forces with the IBD Community all over the world to report such cases, large case series can be constructed, that will help improve care for IBD patients.

All of the above-mentioned activities overlap with other goals and require fruitful synergies among all the ECCO Committees. That is what ECCO is all about.

Let us all work together to attain these future goals for the sake of our patients.