51st Congress of the European Society for Surgical Research, 25−28 May 2016, Prague, Czech Republic

The ESSR

The European Society for Surgical Research is the oldest surgical society in Europe, which was founded in 1966 in Nancy. The society started its life as “La Société Européenne de Chirurgie Expérimentale”, later on in 1974 it was decided to change the name to “European Society for Surgical Research” (ESSR). The aim of the society was always to bring and keep various specialties together. In general it brings together surgeons of various subspecialties, other medical professionals, immunologists and also biologists. With focus on surgery it is probably the only society, where during the annual congress all the surgical specialties may be seen together, e.g. general surgery, abdominal wall, plastics, vascular and cardiac, hepatopancreatobiliary, oncology, etc. but also urology, gynecology and some other specialties which usually do not attend surgical congresses nowadays. This brings an extra value to the congress, the above mentioned specialties face similar problems, their research is often focused the same way, the cross-experience makes the meeting valuable.

The ESSR 2016 Prague annual congress

The ESSR annual meeting has never yet been held in the Czech Republic. During the 2013 annual ESSR congress, which was held in Istanbul, the General Assembly voted for Prague. After Istanbul, the 2014 annual ESSR congress was organised in Budapest, in 2015 the 50th anniversary annual congress was held in Liverpool. The standard of quality remained high, our aim was to keep it high and organise an interesting and scientifically fruitful meeting in Prague.

We chose Guarant International as the PCO, the Corinthia hotel was the venue, which was named the leading business hotel in the Czech Republic at the World Travel Awards 2015.

The scientific program was setup by the Local Organizing Committee and also the Local Scientific Committee . As Honorary president, professor Ryska, the president of the Czech Surgical Society, kindly agreed to stand.

Based on previous years experience and also the ESSR tradition we divided the program into  three parallel sessions within three consecutive days.

The pre-courses

The day before the start of the meeting, two pre-meeting symposiums were prepared. The first pre-course was focused on scientific quality, Professor Tolba held the “Good Clinical Practice Course” (GCP), the course description is as stated on the congress website: “GCP is an international ethical and scientific quality standard for designing, conducting, recording and reporting trials that involve the participation of human subjects. Compliance with this standard provides public assurance that the rights, safety and well-being of trial subjects are protected, consistent with the principles that have their origin in the Declaration of Helsinki, and that the clinical trial data are credible. The objective of GCP Guidelines is to provide a unified standard for the European Union (EU), Japan and the United States to facilitate the mutual acceptance of clinical data by the regulatory authorities in these jurisdictions. This GCP training course is a step-by-step guide to the international ICH-GCP guidelines. It is essential for anyone taking part in the running of a clinical trial. Participating on the GCP course will give you the certificate of investigator to able organize and coordinate clinical trials at a trial site”.

The second course was focused on surgical skills and miniinvasive surgery. Olympus kindly organised the “Latest trends in imaging (3D, 4K, Full HD) and the advanced electrosurgery” course. Within this course some 20 participants had a chance to test their skills by using the latest available technology as well as to learn more on advanced coagulation.

Scientific program

The ESSR 2016 congress received some 579 submitted abstracts for evaluation. Of those 98 abstracts were rejected, the rest were accepted for publication. Some 121 papers were presented as full oral,  121 as mini oral, there were 16 video presentations and finally 223 e-poster presentations. The 2016 ESSR congress attendees came from 34 countries from all around the world. The highest attendance was from the UK (59 participants), Czech Republic (54), Japan (45), Netherlands (32), but also other countries. In total there were nearly 400 attendees registered.

There were hundreds of papers presented, topics varied. Many focused on malignancies including pancreas, liver, colorectal, breast and skin. Liver regeneration, vascular and cardiothoracic surgery topics were also presented. Solid organ transplantation including liver, kidney, pancreas were also discussed topics. The urology and gynecology colleagues focused on waiting time for surgery, prostate cancer, robotic surgery and breast reconstruction in breast cancer patients. Many topics were found to be interesting across the specialties, especially patientobesity, pain, miniinvasive surgery and wound healing. For further details see the detailed congress program dispayed on website.

The awards

Every year  during the annual congress the ESSR presents prizes to award winners. There are four awards to be given every year. The first award, the ESSR Walter Brendel Award,was won by Pim B. OLTHOF from the Netherlands with the paper “Obeticholic acid accelerates liver regeneration following portal vein embolization in a rabbit model”. The second award, the ESSR Young Investigator Award was won by Anne KUIJER from the Netherlands with the paper “Factors associated with gene-expression profile use in Dutch breast cancer patients”. The third award, the ESSR B. Braun Award was won by Uta Dahmen from Germany with the paper “Does the effect of matrix remodeling after liver regeneration impair the decellularization process? Finally, the fourth award, the ESSR Best Clinical Research Award was won by Sabrina H. Rossi from the United Kingdom with the paper “Genomic and prognostic associations of E-cadherin in breast cancer: an imunohistochemical study of 3273 patients, systematic review and meta-analysis”. There were also three sister societies awards winners, their work is traditionally presented on the last day of the congress before the closing ceremony. During this session three winners presented their work.  Mike Wandling from the United States presented “Evaluating the Blind Spot of Surgical Quality: A National Assessment of Trends in Non-Operative Management”. Saroj Das from the United Kingdom presented “Management of Vascular Trauma in the Endovascular Era”, finally Tanya Augustine from South Africa presented “Coagulation-facilitated metastasis: A preliminary assessment of thrombin-mediated & MCF-7-mediated platelet activation and ultrastructural alterations”.

2016 ESSR annual congress novelties

This year, some novelties were introduced within the annual congress. Mini-oral sessions gave a chance for oral presentation to many attendees, this novelty was highly appreciated. The e-poster sessions allowed the inclusion of video presentations within the poster sessions. The ESSR association gave a chance to those attendees, who were not ESSR members yet to sign on site for the ESSR membership. FESSR fellowship is another novelty, based on prior ESSR board discussion and selection, the fellowship was announced during the welcome ceremony. If you wish to become FESSR fellow, see details on the ESSR website and members who fullfill the criteria can apply. The FESSR applications will be assessed by the ESSR board, the diplomas will be given each year during the annual ESSR congress. All the abstracts of the 51^st Congress of the European Society for Surgical Research are available in pdf format online from May 25, 2016 at the Karger website. This is a large additional value to the congress, the abstracts are citable.

2017 ESSR annual congress

Next year, the 52nd International Meeting of the European Society for Surgical Research will be held in Amsterdam, Beurs van Berlage, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 14–17 June 2017, for details see www.essr2017.eu.

It was truly a great pleasure for the ESSR 2016 organising team to host the 51^st Congress of the European Society for Surgical Research in Prague at the Corinthia Hotel on 25–28 May 2016. I hope the meeting met expectations; so far I received positive feedback from both attendees as well as the ESSR board and society members.

Jiri Fronek, MD, PhD, FRCS

associate professor of surgery

Transplant Surgery Department

Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine (IKEM)

140 21 Prague

jiri.fronek@ikem.cz