ESTRO38 Congress Report

Introduction

We imagine that ESTRO 38 was a great event. What were, in your view, the reasons for this success? I really believe ESTRO 38 was a great success from the scientific point of view, due to the huge number of different topics belonging to all different fields of our discipline and the outstanding level of the

To get this vision statement we will be hardly working on these four strategy themes: • From Research To Practice • Strengthening the Society

• Strengthening the profession • Strenghtening partnership

Next annual ESTROmeetings will certainly be a keymoment in achieving the various results included in these strategic themes. In what way was the congress an asset to professionals in radiation oncology? What did it bring to their knowledge and practice? I believe that the ESTRO annual conference guarantees a mix of innovation and practice, of absorbing knowledge and sharing experiences, of networking, of science and fun; and it is indeed this mix that makes our conference a fixed “rendez-vous” for somany radiation oncology professionals from Europe and around the globe. ESTRO38was also themoment where the new visual identify of ESTRO was unveiled, allowing for a consistent brand visibility both on ESTRO’s digital and physical presence. The new website will allow the radiation oncology community to easily find the information they are looking for and the full integration with our databases – which will be finalized by end of 2019 – will further enhance the user experience. When is the next meeting? ESTRO 39 is scheduled next year, 3-7 April 2020 in Vienna, Austria. It will be another occasion for all RadiationOncology professionals to get together once again! ESTRO 39 will convey the theme ‘Translating research and partnership into optimal health’

UMBERTO RICARDI

contributions; multidisciplinary sessions, including several joint symposia with other scientific societies and for the first time we had a joint symposium with EACR.These always represented an added value, emphasizing the importance of the conference theme statement: targeting optimal care, TOGETHER. We had around 2250 abstracts this year, confirming the interest of people to be actively involved in our annual meeting: this aspect is certainly one of the key elements in making the annual conference so successful. The number of registered delegates and square meters of exhibition area were the two other elements making ESTRO 38 a great success. We had over 3.700 participants registered, excluding industry representatives. This is an increase of 6% compared to ESTRO 37. On the exhibition front, we hosted 94 industry partners, 14 national associations and 13 start-ups – an increase on all fronts! On what did the sessions focus? Give a few examples As mentioned before, the topics were broad and covering all aspects of radiation oncology disciplines. Naming a few sessions means ignoring somany others but among those sessions that emphasised the conference theme: “Targeting optimal care, Together”, I would mention those focusing on MR-guided radiotherapy and on combinations of immunotherapy with radiotherapy. Sessions on oligometastatic disease and particle therapy were also perfectly in line with the conference theme. A special mention goes to two other sessions: randomized clinical trials and late breaking abstract ones, where more than ten randomized clinical trials (RCT) have been presented in overcrowded large rooms: I hope to see full papers relating to these RCT published very soon in the Green Journal. Has the scientific programme been developed to reflect the ESTRO vision? What about the newly proposed vision? Yes, it was. The scientific programme of the conference was centred on our visionwhich states that all European patients must have proper access to state of the art radiotherapy. ESTRO’s new vision statement for 2030 ‘Radiation Oncology. Optimal Health for All, Together.’ emphasizes the ambition of the Society to further reinforce radiation oncology as a core partner in multidisciplinary cancer care and to guarantee accessible and high-value radiation therapy for all cancer patients who need it.

Looking forward to meeting you there! Umberto Ricardi ESTRO 38 Chair

Congress report | INTRODUCTION

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