Letter from the ECCO President
Britta Siegmund, ECCO President
 Britta Siegmund © ECCO |
Dear ECCO Friends,
Spring is here and I am reflecting on the wonderful Congress that we had in Stockholm!
The new ECCO Strategy – REACH – has not only been fully introduced but has already been fully addressed in all our committees. The focus of this year’s Congress was the “E” – Equal access to care, emphasising the global impact of ECCO. With 99 different countries represented at the Congress and many multinational exchanges throughout the programme, it is evident that the number of networks is growing and that there are many plans to come. We, as the Governing Board, are very excited that the ECCO Family shares our enthusiasm for REACH!
The workshop reports in this issue highlight the high level of activity of our committees around the ECCO Congress. ClinCom organised the 9th ClinCom Workshop, aiming at sharing best practices and knowledge on various aspects of clinical trials. They were also responsible for the 7th Basic ECCO Educational Course for Industry with a comprehensive training programme tailored to professionals from different industries. In addition, the 22nd ECCO IBD Intensive Course for Trainees, the 13th S-ECCO IBD Masterclass and the 9th H-ECCO Masterclass attracted much attention. As in previous years, there was a high level of interest in ultrasound, as demonstrated by the 5th ECCO Basic Imaging Workshop and the 11th ECCO Advanced Ultrasound Workshop, both of which were held in collaboration with ESGAR & IBUS, underlining ECCO’s support in this area. The network of our nurses continues to grow, as evidenced by the 8th N-ECCO Research Forum, the 15th N-ECCO School and the 18th N-ECCO Networking Meeting. There is growing interest from all over the world. Furthermore, the 9th D-ECCO Workshop was a great success with 162 attendees – congratulations!
A particular highlight was the 10th Y-ECCO Science Workshop “Thinking outside the gut”, which provided stimulating talks and discussions. The literature review in this issue includes a recent paper in Nature on environmental factors promoting intestinal inflammation, the association of intra-abdominal visceral adipose tissue and clinical disease activity that was recently published in Gastroenterology and the EXPLORER trial published in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology. On a final note regarding Y-ECCO, make sure you do not miss the Y-ECCO Interview Corner with Shaji Sebastian (Seb), the new Treasurer of ECCO who has many more interests.
In case you missed the epidemiological abstracts, read the section by Paul Henderson from EpiCom on the best epidemiological abstract from ECCO this year. In addition, this issue of ECCO News provides details on the new ECCO Guidelines for the management of Crohn’s Disease, which were introduced at the Congress.
The D-ECCO Committee expresses its gratitude to Lihi Godny, who is stepping down as D-ECCO Chair, and at the same time welcomes Alicia Sandall, a registered dietitian from the UK. Furthermore, Amit Assa, Chair of P-ECCO, welcomes Iva Hojsak from Zagreb as a new member.
In case you think that the wait until the next ECCO Congress is too long, EduCom is introducing a new format, “Fast Facts in IBD”, to complement the biannual ECCO Postgraduate Course, so make sure that you mark your calendars (June 12 from 5 to 7 p.m. CET).
All these activities are only possible because of all the active ECCO Members. Thank you to the entire ECCO Family for your contributions!
I am looking forward to meeting all of you during the various activities that will take place in the coming months – stay tuned!
Britta