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 we had in Stockholm! The new ECCO strategy – “E” element of REACH strategy – was not only fully launched but also already addressed in all our committee meetings. The focus of this year’s congress was the letter “E” – Equitable access to IBD to care”, – expanding the outreach and inclusivity of ECCO initiatives across the globe. With 99 different countries represented at the congress and many multi-national exchanges throughout the programme, such as the Global Forum, it shows the growing network, with more plans to come. We as the Governing Board are very excited that the ECCO family shares our enthusiasm for “E” element of REACH strategy !
The workshop reports in this issue reflect the high level of activity of our committees around the ECCO Congress. ClinCom organised the 9th ClinCom Workshop 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 an unbroken interest in ultrasound, as demonstrated by the 5th ECCO Basic Imaging and the 11th ECCO Advanced Ultrasound Workshop both in collaboration with ESAGR & 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 interest from aroundü the world in our nurses’ activities. Furthermore, the 9th D-ECCO Workshop was a great success with 162 attendees - congratulations!
A particular highlight was the 10th Y-ECCO Basic 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 as well as the EXPLORER trial published in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology. Last note on Y-ECCO, do not miss the Y-ECCO interview corner with Shaji Sebastian (Seb), the new treasurer of ECCO, with many interesting insights.
In case you missed the epidemiological abstracts, read the section by Paul Henderson from EpiCom on best epidemiological abstract from ECCO this year. In addition, the new ECCO Guidelines for the management of Crohn’s disease were introduced at the congress, details are also provided in this issue of ECCO News.
The D-ECCO Committee is expressing its gratitude to Lihi Godny, the stepping-down D-ECCO chair and at the same time welcoming Alicia Sandal a registered dietitian from UK. Its all change at SciCom as Chair Isabelle Cleynen, bids farewell and welcomes three new committee members. Furthermore, Amit Assa chair of P-ECCO welcomes Iva Hojsak from Zagreb as new member!
If you think that the time 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 mark your calendars (June 12th from 5 to 7 pm CET)!
All these activities are only possible because of all our active ECCO members. Thanks to the entire ECCO family for your contributions!
I am looking forward meeting all of you throughout the various activities in the coming months, stay tuned!
Britta