The 25th European Society of Thoracic Surgeons (ESTS)—an academic feast held in the beautiful town of the Alps
Editor’s note
The 25th European Society of Thoracic Surgeons (ESTS) was successfully held during May 28–May 31 in the International Conference Center in Innsbruck, a historical and cultural city in Austria. This event gathered thousands of experts and scholars from all over the world. AME editorial team had the great honor to attend this conference, to witness this wonderful academic feast. Let’s review the highlights of this conference.
Founded in 1993, ESTS is a professional association of thoracic surgeons in Europe. It aims to improve quality in all aspects of our specialty—from clinical and surgical management of patients to education, training and credentialing of thoracic surgeons in Europe and worldwide. So far, there are more than 1,200 members coming from 70 different countries all over the world.
Postgraduate Symposium—Master Cup
On May 28, the 25th European Society of Thoracic Surgeons (ESTS) was beginning with the Postgraduate Symposium on General Thoracic Surgery.
This is the 7th Postgraduate Symposium on General Thoracic Surgery among the thoracic surgeons from several continents. This Symposium is distinctive and brilliant, which has become one of the most attractive events in ESTS meeting.
The Master Cup Challenge in this year is different from the past ones. The participants were grouped by state, instead of continent. Professor Lanjun Zhang from Department of Thoracic Surgery, Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Hospital is the team leader of China team. Team members are Fan Zhang from Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences Cancer Hospital, Runsen Jin from Shanghai Ruijin Hospital, Qiuyuan Li from Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital. These four team members were selected from there competitive competitions which were planned by Professor Alan Sihoe, one of the chairmen of this Symposium and AME publishing company (Figure 1).
After three rounds of fierce competition, the Canadian team win the first prize. Although the Chinese team missed the trophy eventually, this experience itself has extraordinary significance for them (Figures 2–4).
As a special part of this competition, Claudio Caviezel, the AME-ESTS prize winner of last year, shared his experience at the China Thoracic Surgery Center (Figure 5). During his time in China, he not only improved his professional skills, but also made many new friends.
Research section of ESTS
This year, ESTS had set up plenty of speech sessions, targeting at thoracic disease.
ESTS-CATS Joint Session is one of the highlights of this year’s ESTS meeting, which showed the highest level of China’s thoracic surgery, meaning that the cooperation between the European and Chinese thoracic surgery reached a new height (Figures 6–13).
Challenging oncology cases in thoracic surgery: a multidisciplinary tumor board (MTB) session
Challenging oncology cases in thoracic surgery is also a highlight in the meeting. The participants in this section were winners of the contests held by AME publishing company. Professor Alan Sihoe presided over the meeting, with special guests: Prof. Kostas Papagiannopouolos, Professor Paul Van Houtte and Prof. Silvia Novello (Figures 14–16).
Brompton Session
Six abstracts have been selected for the Brompton Session by a panel of judges from approximately 250 abstracts accepted for presentation (Figure 17). Dr. Sai Yendamuri, Chair of the Department of Thoracic Surgery at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, wins Brompton Prize at the 2017 ESTS Annual Meeting.
Cooperation agreement between AME Publishing Company and SICT
The agreement of strategic partnership between AME Publishing Company and Italian Society of Thoracic Surgery (SICT) is officially signed on AME exhibit booth of the ESTS Annual Meeting (Figure 18), which for AME is an important step towards facilitating development in the field of thoracic surgery for AME.
SICT (www.sichirurgiatoracica.it) was founded in 1948, and it is the main thoracic society in Italy. Inside SICT, some groups work with oriented projects (e.g., VATS Group, Metastasis group, rare tumors of the lung group). The Association is based in Rome. The scientific activity of SICT is related to the coordination of events about thoracic surgery in Italy.
AME and ESTS
ESTS-AME prize
JTD focused issue, the 4th edition of European Perspective of Thoracic Surgery dedicated to the ESTS 2017 (Figure 19), appeared in delegate bag of the Annual Meeting, about 1500 copies of this issue were presented to the onsite participants. The 4th edition of European Perspective of Thoracic Surgery is organized by the Guest Editors Dr. Alessandro Brunelli (General Secretary of ESTS) and Dr. Enrico Ruffini (Director of ESTS Annual Meeting). Since 2014, JTD and its publisher AME Publishing Company has established stable cooperation with ESTS. We are honored to cooperate with ESTS, with the hope of facilitating academic progress in the field of thoracic surgery so that even more patients can benefit.
AME booth
At the AME exhibit booth during the ESTS Annual Meeting (Figure 20), we warmly welcome attendees to stop by our booth. This gave us a chance to meet the editors-in-chief, editorial board members, guest editors, authors, sharing the latest updates of AME journals, inviting them for interviews, and offering certifications to editorial board members, etc. (Figures 21–27).
Acknowledgements
None.
Footnote
Conflicts of Interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.