ESGAR Annual Meeting 2015

The ESGAR Annual Meeting, the most important event of the Society's calendar, is held from June 9 – 12, 2015 in Paris, France.

Congress Venue

As second largest conference and exhibition centre in Paris, the Center of New Industries and Technologies „CNIT“ is located in the largest European business district “La Défense”. The district is located at the western-most extremity of the ten-kilometre-long Historical Axis of Paris, which starts at the Louvre in Central Paris and continues along the Champs-Élysées, well beyond the Arc de Triomphe before culminating at La Défense. Situated on the northern side of the La Défense plaza, the CNIT is one of the most eye-catching buildings in modern architecture in Paris. It welcomes you under its spectacular vault, a recognised architectural achievement. The CNIT is easily accessible from all major airports in Paris (Roissy Charles de Gaulle Airport, Orly Airport and Beauvais Airport). It is located on metro line 1, which stops near most major monuments. There is direct access from the metro station to the convention centre.

Address:

Congress Language

The meeting will be held in English.

Registration Fees (including 20% VAT)

Early – January 7 until March 15, 2015

Deadline for advance registration with reduced fees is May 5, 2015. After this date registrations can still be made online with the onsite fee.

* Residents and radiographers must send or fax a letter from their head of department confirming their status as a resident or radiographer within 7 days of completed online registration. In case this confirmation is not received, the registration fee will be automatically adjusted to a regular fee. The age limit for registrations as resident is 35 (incl. the age of 35).

Cases of the Day

Different cases will be displayed each day from Tuesday, June 9 to Friday, June 12, 2015 giving registrants the opportunity to take part in the quiz and check the results on the following day. The participant who solves the most cases will receive a diploma and will be announced in the ESGAR Newsletter. The coordinator of the ESGAR 2015 Cases of the Day competition is M. Zins, Paris/FR.

CEUS Training Centre

The “CEUS Training Centre” covers the needs for training in the area of contrast-enhanced ultrasound which is under rapid development. The aim of this training centre will be to educate attendees on basic principles of CEUS as well as on the use of dedicated software for data analysis. A large series of clinical cases will be available for discussion. Attendees will have the opportunity to work on cases under the close tutorage of experts. Different fields of applications will be covered. Participants should register in advance together with congress registration to secure a place.

Clinical Files

An experienced moderator will present three to six themed and challenging cases, consisting of correlated imaging modalities to a radiology panel. Each case will be chosen to illustrate various diagnostic and therapeutic options available for the clinical management of the patient. The moderator will then lead a highly interactive discussion with an emphasis on audience participation. The aim of this innovative session is to stress the central role of clinical radiology in determining options for patient management.

CTC Hands-On Centre / Oncology Centre

ESGAR is happy to be able to offer a “CT Colonography Hands-on Centre” again during its Annual Meeting, responding to the need for practical training in CTC interpretation. The programme offered at the CTC Hands-on Centre is based on individual case reviews guided by experienced tutors. Workstations from different vendors will be available for training. In addition we will also offer an “Oncology Hands-on Centre” again. The aim is to train radiologists in specific oncologic imaging applications. Places for the training centres are limited therefore pre-registration is necessary.

Foundation Course

This educational feature, which was successfully held during previous Annual Meetings, will be repeated with different topics at ESGAR 2015. As its name implies, the Foundation Course is intended to provide fundamental information regarding abdominal and gastrointestinal radiology for all registrants, ranging from trainees to senior radiologists. In the Foundation Course, gastrointestinal and abdominal radiological knowledge will be complemented with medical, surgical and pathologic information to provide a complete overview of gastrointestinal diseases and their management.

Interventional Radiology at ESGAR 2015

The educational feature “GI & abdominal interventional radiology: a practical approach” was introduced during the ESGAR 2009 Annual Meeting and following positive delegate comments has been very successfully expanded at subsequent meetings in order to address the central role interventional techniques play in the management of patients with gastrointestinal and abdominal diseases. ESGAR 2015 again includes Lecture Sessions, scientific papers and posters as well as a Postgraduate Course dedicated to “GI oncologic imaging and intervention”. The daily interventional sessions will again be led by expert tutors, emphasising key practical issues, ranging from basic to advanced knowledge and skills. As in previous years, interactivity will be encouraged between delegates and tutors in order to facilitate useful practical discussion. In addition the video case workshops, introduced during ESGAR 2012 now comprise a dedicated session. This session will help to augment the various practical aspects and procedural tips/tricks using the latest video-based learning techniques, in order to further encourage live audience participation with IR experts in an interactive learning environment.

Lecture Sessions

All Lecture Sessions are dedicated to a special area of interest with defined lecture objectives to ensure integration and avoid overlap. Sessions are designed not only to describe modalities for imaging and therapy, but also to stress clinical relevance and outcomes. Several sessions have a multidisciplinary approach or are organised in collaboration with other societies (ESUR). In addition one Lecture Session (LS 3) will be dedicated to a specific topic of the European Training Curriculum.

Lunch Symposia

From Tuesday to Friday at lunchtime, symposia will be held in collaboration with industrial companies and corporate partners. The subjects of these symposia will include a variety of “hot topics” concerning the ongoing development in some major fields of abdominal diagnostic and interventional radiology.

Postgraduate Courses

At ESGAR 2015 two Postgraduate Courses are offered on the first day of the meeting, Tuesday, June 9, 2015. Each course deals with a self-contained topic. The rationale for creating two Postgraduate Courses is that participants choose one of the two courses and follow one programme the entire day. The programme is not structured as such as to switch between the two courses. Participants are asked to indicate together with registration which Postgraduate Course they wish to attend.

Postgraduate Course 1: Magnetic resonance of the abdomen: from the protocol to the report
Postgraduate Course 2: GI oncologic imaging: from diagnosis to intervention

Research Centre

The Research Centre, successfully introduced at ESGAR 2008, is intended to illustrate and promote aspects of radiological research in the field of abdominal imaging in Europe. Research is an important feature of ESGAR Annual Meetings, especially since many members are involved in clinical or basic research studies. Each year we present two sessions and Paris will continue this tradition. One session will focus on systematic reviews with three talks on how to perform a review, how to meta-analyse the data from it (if appropriate) and how to interpret the findings using real examples from the literature. The other session will comprise three talks on different study designs that are used in radiology. Predictably, one will discuss diagnostic test accuracy studies, since this is the “classic” study design, but there will also be talks on randomised controlled trail design in radiology and a talk on developing prognostic models, which is the design that should usually be used to evaluate new imaging biomarkers.

Scientific Exhibition - Poster Exhibition

The poster system allows registrants to submit their exhibits online, to view them in the conference centre and send selected material to participants’ individual e-mail addresses for easy referencing. The uploading and displaying of media files, such as images, tables and graphs and also the inclusion of video clips, PowerPoint slides, Flash or Director Shockwave animations in the presentation is possible as well. Following successful submission and acceptance of an abstract, the author will receive detailed information and deadlines for uploading the scientific material into the database. The scientific and educational posters displayed at ESGAR 2015 in the poster exhibition will be included in the permanent ESGAR poster database after the meeting.

Scientific Sessions

Researchers will present original proffered papers on new and original aspects of abdominal imaging and intervention. Selected papers will be gathered into sessions, each dealing with a homogenous topic. Time for discussion between researchers and attendees will be available after each presentation.