Report on the 61st ECCO Educational Workshop, Tel Aviv, Israel

The day was divided into four sessions on key topics addressed in ECCO Consensus Guidelines that are relevant to everyday clinical management. The host faculty, comprising Iris Dotan, Shomron Ben-Horin and Henit Yanai, welcomed the delegates and introduced the sessions and chairs. The first session on Crohn’s Disease focussed on new-onset ileocaecal and recurrent complications, with presentations by Ayal Hirsch and Saleh Daher. The second session related to Ulcerative Colitis and included case-based discussions on Acute Severe Colitis, presented by Irit Avni Biron, and Refractory Colitis, presented by Michal Openhaim. In the third session, the challenges of treating patients with co-morbidities and cancer were discussed; one case was presented by Naila Arebi, and then Marietta Iacucci used a case to share her expertise in managing the surveillance of IBD. The final session highlighted management of a special group of IBD patients, namely pregnant patients, and featured a presentation by Ariella Bar-Gill. The workshop also offered the Israeli IBD Society Research Network an ideal opportunity to hold a meeting to consolidate their research activities; here the discussion was led by Uri Kopylov.

The event was a memorable educational experience, with no lack of differing opinions interspersed with light-hearted banter. Each presentation ended with a key learning point to leave the delegates with a sense of achievement in relation to the learning objectives. A unanimous lamentation was the difficulty in choosing between the wide range of treatment options for both Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn’s Disease due to the lack of comparative studies between drugs, and a call was made for further research in this area.

The Workshop was diligently supported by Manuel Sommerfeld from ECCO Office; it ran smoothly and on time, giving delegates enough time to enjoy the lovely evening on the sandy banks of Tel Aviv.