27 WORLD GASTROENTEROLOGY NEWS MAY 2016 Editorial | Expert Point of View | Gastro 2016: EGHS-WGO | WDHD News | WGO & WGOF News | WGO Global Guidelines | Calendar of Events 15th Iranian International Congress of Gastroenterology and Hepatology (ICGH 2015) Reza Malekzadeh, MD, AGAF Professor of Medicine and Gastroenterology Director, Digestive Disease Research Institute Tehran University of Medical Sciences; Tehran, Iran President, ICGH 2015; President, IAGH Seyed Alireza Taghavi, MD Associated Professor of Medicine and Gastroenterology Gastroenterology Department Shiraz University of Medical Sciences; Shiraz, Iran Secretary, ICGH 2015 The Iranian Association of Gastroen-terology and Hepatology (IAGH) held its 15th annual congress in November 2015 in Shiraz, Iran. This congress was held in collaboration with the Gastro-entero-hepatology Research Center of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. With about 800 attendants from all over the world, 120 speakers, 350 submitted abstracts, and five workshops, this conference was the most important annual event for the gastroenterology community in Iran and also served as a meeting place to make connections for both Iranian and international scientists. As usual, this meeting was at-tended by a significant number of experts from both Iranian and foreign academic centers. A full day of post-graduate programming, with the main subject of liver diseases, was held on the first day. Topics such as Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, autoimmune Hepa-titis, and Wilson’s disease, as well as practical approaches to the common problems in cirrhosis (variceal bleed-ing, coagulopathy), space occupying lesions of the liver, and acute liver injury were discussed by experts. The target group for the postgraduate course was community internists and gastroenterologists as well as internal medicine residents. The post-graduate course was fol-lowed by three days of main program-ming in two conference halls. An exhibition by local and international pharmaceutical companies, as well as endoscopy equipment and accessory manufacturing companies, was held in conjunction with the main pro-gram. Three live workshops on upper and lower endoscopy and ERCP were also held during the conference. The conference was opened by Professor Reza Malekzadeh, President of IAGH, who presented data on the global situation of research in medi-cine as well as in gastroenterology, and the role and rank Iranian scientists in production of these scientific data. The first day’s focus was on gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD) and Barrett’s esophagus, in which new data as well practical points about incidence, presentation, and preven-tion of these important diseases, were discussed in panels and lectures. The differences in incidence of Barrett’s between Iran and western countries and their possible cause and implica-tions were also discussed. An entire session was devoted to upper GI neoplasia, in the light of new data from the internationally conducted Golestan cohort proj-ect. New local population–based data and management issues about nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) were discussed. Liver transplanta-tion, helicobacter pylori, and common issues such as incontinence were also discussed in detail. The Golestan Cohort Study (GCS) is the largest (50,100 participants) prospective cohort study in the Mid-dle East and North Africa. It started in 2004 in North-eastern Iran primar-ily focused on Esophageal Cancer and in addition included other cancer and chronic diseases. Ten years after the enrollment phase, the follow up success rate is >99% and up to now 5,100 death have been recorded. GCS is going on very well and currently more than 50 manuscripts have been published from this study. Simultaneous meetings of the “National Cirrhosis Registry Working Group” and “National IBD Registry” concluded the first day. Almost all of the sessions were followed by case discussions and frequently heated question and answer sessions. The second day’s sessions included updates on the management of Hepa-titis C and a session on pancreato-bili-ary disorders. An entire afternoon was devoted to lectures by internationally invited lecturers from the Mediter-ranean Task Force for Cancer Control
ewgn-vol21-issue1-FINAL
To see the actual publication please follow the link above