Tamás Fekete, chair of EUROSPINE programme committee and head of the meeting council, looks forward to welcoming delegates to Helsinki, from 16-18 October 2019
The EUROSPINE Annual Meeting provides a venue where spine experts from all over the world gather to network and share knowledge while learning about the latest treatments and approaches in spine healthcare. This year we will meet in the heart of the capital city of Finland. Welcome to Helsinki! Tervetuloa Helsinkiin!
As such, we work continuously to offer exciting, comprehensive and multidisciplinary content presented by renowned experts. We were very pleased to once again receive close to 1,000 abstracts distributed over 18 submission categories covering a wide range of techniques, technologies and disciplines. Research groups and spine professionals from 49 countries all over the world take advantage of the opportunity to share their work at the EUROSPINE Annual Meeting.
Keeping in mind that spine care involves many specialties, we are attempting to balance between various surgical and conservative specialities. We have created two new submission categories to attract neurosurgeons, too: Craniocervical junction (all pathologies) and intradural spinal pathologies.
Our programme committee, composed of 23 dedicated spine professionals, followed a meticulous reviewing process and selected 69 abstracts for regular podium presentations, 120 for oral ‘QuickFires’ and 115 for e-posters.
Furthermore, this year’s Annual Meeting will be launched with two pre-day courses: ‘Fusion level selection and correction options in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis’ and ‘The intervertebral disc: From basic science to high end surgery and other novel treatments across European borders’. Besides the two pre-day courses, the devoted lunch symposia and pre-day meeting committee has also organised six lunch symposia that have always proven to be very popular in the past. They will cover hot topics, such as a cervical surgical video session, current concepts on sagittal balance in adult spinal deformities, non-fusion anterior scoliosis correction and vertebral body tethering for AIS, management of common complications in adult spine surgery, going beyond the basics in cervical spine trauma and provide valuable information on the recently relaunched Spine Tango Registry.
This year we will start each day with a keynote lecture, which is an exciting new feature. Three outstanding experts will share their expertise. Juha Antti Tuominen, current CEO of Helsinki and Uusimaa Hospital District, will talk about data and its use in health care; Yan Wang, a professor and chief surgeon of Department of Orthopaedics at 301 Hospital in Beijing, China, will give his lecture focusing on the hip-spine connection and, last but not least, Andrew Brodbelt, a consultant neurosurgeon at the Walton Centre in Liverpool, England, and an honorary clinical senior lecturer at The University of Liverpool, will address syringomyelia.
Besides these new features, we continue with our much-appreciated debates in the programme: The first debate seeks an answer to whether robotics and smart systems will replace spinal surgeons by 2030. The second one is about the future of treatment of disc degeneration and discusses regenerative versus surgical therapies.
All together “it’s shaping up to be a ‘don’t miss’ event for delegates, our MedTech partners and all other involved stakeholders”, says Tamás Fekete, chair of EUROSPINE programme committee and head of the meeting council. We look forward to welcoming delegates to Helsinki in October.
Image credit: © Eetu Ahanen/ Helsinki Marketing