Thursday dawned bright at La Palais des Congrès Acropolis as coloproctologists from all over the world headed back to Nice’s old-town for day two of our Annual and Scientific Meeting.
Despite the early start, the room was packed for the Trainee Video Session chaired by Roel Hompers (the Netherlands) and Harold Rosen (Austria).
Shortly after that an audience was treated to four presentations on the newest and most exciting new research plus a special announcement in the New Trials Forum where Sanjay Chaundrai revealed the 2019 ESCP Cohort Study will look at robotic surgery.
A morning jam-packed with paper presentations concerned with neoplasia and an interesting miscellany of other topics delivered guests to the first keynote via a quick coffee and stroll through the exhibition hall and poster display.
The first keynote of the day was delivered by the venerable Petr Tsarkov who delivered an edifying look at how to best manage para-aortic and lateral pelvic lymph nodes in colorectal cancer, and why this approach needs to be considered and used as a more ‘mainstream’ tool.
This call to action was followed by outgoing ESCP President and a Professor of Coloproctology, Ethem Gecim’s last formal address to the membership in this capacity. He excited to enthusiastic applause and thanks from the ESCP membership for his contribution to ESCP.
However, Professor Gecim was immediately put back to work as he chaired the very next session, International Travelling Free Papers. Here delegates were treated to presentations from American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons (ASCRS), Japan Society of Coloproctology (JSCP) and Korean Society of Coloproctology (KSCP).
The afternoon session opened with the ever-popular Six Best Paper presentations to a very kind, and large, audience. While all presentations were excellent and sparked numerous questions from the floor, only one can be chosen as this year’s best practice - watch this space!
Twitter was awash with Young ESCP and Eurosurg observations as the very popular Student Session kicked off, giving us all a good dose of their infectious proactivity. We look forward to providing an in-depth update of Young ESCP’s plans and activity soon.
Next up were two parallel symposiums, providing delegates with a hard choice on which to go to.
The first symposium was delivered in partnership with our friends at European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation (ECCO) where Andre D’Hoore, Omar Faiz, Krisztina Gecse and Jeremie Lefevre held the audience enrapt at their discussions on how surgeons can impact Chron’s recurrence; why and how we should centralise IBD care; and what the impact of antibody therapy is on surgical outcomes in IBD.
The second symposium, this time in partnership with the European Association for Endoscopic Surgeons, got the audience thinking about the finer points of low anatomic techniques, whether ileostomies are avoidable and how to salvage an anastomotic failure.
The all-important ESCP Annual General Meeting followed before the final keynote of the day from the very excellent Donato Altomore whose lecture on “Breath biopsy for colorectal cancer screening” certianly had delegates holding thiers at the exciting possibilities of this new field of metabolomics which studies molecular composition of the breath and its changes induced in human diseases.
The day was not over yet as audiences poured into another two parallel sessions where more free papers concerning neoplasia were offered up for debate and discussion.
After that, it was time for a little bit of fun in the sun, as ESCP delegates put on thier glad rags for the evening’s excitingly glamousours beach party at Castel Plage – a fitting end to an exceptional day of content and new professional connections for all.