Report on the 77th ECCO Educational Workshop, Lima, Peru

The 77th ECCO Educational Workshop took place at the Lima Convention Center, Peru, on August 29, 2025. This event, the first ECCO Workshop of the year to be held outside Europe, brought together more than 130 participants from different countries of South America and was celebrated during SPED 2025 (Gastroenterology Panamerican Week), which had started on the previous day. The workshop featured interactive discussion on various clinical scenarios and hot topics in IBD.

The always attractive Lima was a lovely setting in South America for a face-to-face workshop outside of Europe. It was great finally to meet colleagues and to have an excellent opportunity to network and exchange ideas.

The ECCO Faculty comprised Manuel Barreiro-de Acosta (EduCom Member) and Natália Queiroz (formerly of EduCom and now an EpiCom Member), who were joined by the local faculty, comprising the Peruvian organisers (Juan Paredes, Hugo Cedrón and Luis Cervera), and also by faculty from neighbouring countries such as Chile, Argentina and Ecuador. All faculty members were involved in the presentation and discussion of the cases. The environment was easy-going, allowing delegates and trainees to join the discussion so that all participants could learn from various experiences and different settings, sharing local experiences and trying to apply ECCO e-Guides in their clinical practice.

The workshop was divided into two sessions, and topics were directly related to daily challenges in clinical practice. The morning session focused on Crohn’s Disease, including difficult cases and perianal involvement. The session concluded with a state-of-the-art lecture, "Quality of care in IBD. What does an IBD Unit need in 2025? E-Quality ECCO Project", by Manuel Barreiro-de Acosta.  In the afternoon, we discussed both pregnancy in patients with Ulcerative Colitis and Acute Severe Colitis. A closing state-of-the-art lecture entitled “Optimizing Therapy in IBD” was delivered by Natália Queiroz. The level of participant engagement was amazing, with numerous questions, lively discussions and sharing of ideas—all with the aim of improving the management of patients with IBD.

It was a great pleasure once again to hold an ECCO Educational Workshop in Peru, and we can’t wait for the next one in LATAM!