Looking forward to ECBIP 2023…

Samiran Dey

It’s great to be back at the European Congress for Bronchoscopy and Interventional Pulmonology (ECBIP) once again, and it’s really special this year because it is the first time it has taken place in person since COVID hit the world. While remote working technology has been wonderful over those years, there’s no comparison to being able to meet customers and the entire Respiratory community face-to-face.

I am looking forward to a packed agenda, especially the dedicated first day of hands-on workshops. These are an opportunity for delegates to try out products for themselves and learn techniques from the experts. Fujifilm has two workshops at the congress, which we hope will be well-attended: firstly, there’s ‘Linear EBUS mediastinal staging’ by Dr Marta Diez and Dr Rosa Lopez, followed by ‘Peripheral bronchoscopic biopsy with radial EBUS and navigating planning’ by Dr Pere Trias. It will be exciting to see so many workshops being offered simultaneously to the delegates.

I must extend my thanks in particular to Dr Javier Flandes for putting on the ECBIP combined with the AEER (Spanish Pulmonology Society) meeting at the same time. This is the first time that Madrid is hosting ECBIP, so they have taken the opportunity to combine the AEER congress with ECBIP, which has meant greater scope for learning, and a much bigger programme of hands-on workshops than we would have had usually.

And of course, you come to a specialist medical congress to learn about new developments through lectures and symposia. I am interested in seeing what’s being developed in European interventional pulmonology techniques, and there are some exciting lectures planned over the three days. Some highlights for me on the agenda are seeing publications on navigation bronchoscopy and discussions of Robotics and Cone-beam CT.

I am looking forward to greeting medical colleagues to discuss what we’re doing at Fujifilm to advance pulmonology solutions. I can’t wait to talk about advances of lung cancer screening programmes on a regional and national level – there have been some exciting developments such as NICE approval of screening in the UK – and how government funding will work to support infrastructure and cope with the increase in patient referral. Lung cancer screening programmes are vital to ensure early diagnosis, and I am keen to discuss this in more detail with representatives from the other countries that are establishing local screening programmes, based off the protocol of the NELSON study.

This is a crucial time for pulmonology. Post COVID, we are working through the recovery of respiratory medicine since the pandemic, and there have been many far-reaching consequences to overcome. The backlog in lung cancer patients due to the disruption to health services has to be tackled, and medics have had to work hard to return to normal practice of routine procedures and referral to surgery and oncology treatments. I’m delighted to be back at ECBIP, and it couldn’t have come at a better time.

See you there!