Objectives and Background

Objectives

This Third Joint Meeting has two principal goals: to provide the newest and the best evidence on several topics in thoracic surgery, and to review the most important details of time-honoured and new procedures and surgical techniques.

The scientific programme, a full immersion in thoracic surgery and oncology, will combine a series of short lectures with video forum sessions and educational seminars. Particular attention has been given to the discussion time of the topics in order to promote an active and rewarding participation.

The scientific programme is designed to meet the needs of residents as well as young and senior specialists in thoracic surgery, pneumology, and oncology.

Background

The International Meetings on General Thoracic Surgery were organized by the General Thoracic Surgery Unit of Sagrat Cor, University Hospital in Barcelona, in 1992, 1994, 1997, 1999 and 2002. International Faculty members came from USA and Europe (H. Grillo, W.S. Payne, H. Ellis, P. Goldstraw, D. Mathisen, R. Landreneau, P. Pairolero, S. Hazelrigg, S. Cassivi, D. Lardinois, A. Patterson, D. Nuss, I. Vogt Moykopf, A. Lerut, E. Rendina, K. Naunheim, M.R. Mueller, and others) with a valuable contribution of the Spanish units in each of the meetings.

The International Workshops on Surgical Exploration of the Mediastinum and Systematic Nodal Dissection were organized in Terrassa, Barcelona, Spain, in 1998, 2000, 2003 and 2006. Nearly 100 speakers from Spain and abroad participated in these highly specific meetings. Their highlights were the live surgery programmes featuring systematic nodal dissection and lung resection for lung cancer performed by Japanese thoracic surgeons (T. Naruke, R. Tsuchiya, T. Goya, H. Kondo, H. Nomori, and H. Asamura), and videomediastinoscopies, extended cervical videomediastinoscopies, video-assisted mediastinal lymphadenectomies, performed by staff thoracic surgeons and invited thoracic surgeons who developed these techniques (M. Huertgen, B. Witte, M. Zielinski, and J. Kuzdzal). Additionally, topics such as transbronchial needle aspiration and bronchial and oesophageal ultrasound with fine needle aspiration were integrated into the programme due to its clinical relevance and utility.

The Thoracic Oncology, Thoracic Surgery and Techniques & Transplant Areas are multidisciplinary collaborative working groups of the Spanish Society of Pneumology and Thoracic Surgery (SEPAR) mainly composed by thoracic surgeons and pulmonologists but also by oncologists, radiologists, pathologists, nurses, etc. The number and quality of the scientific publications, guidelines and meetings testify to the long tradition and prestige of these working teams. Some of the most relevant works have been those of 1) the Bronchogenic Carcinoma Cooperative Group I (GCCB-SEPAR-I) that registered data from nearly 3000 patients with lung cancer who had undergone surgical treatment from 1993 to 1997; from the analyses of the collected data, more than 30 publications in indexed journals have been already published; 2) the Spanish Multicenter Study of Neuroendocrine Tumours of the Lung (EMETNE-SEPAR), with more than 5 publications in indexed journals specifically related to the treatment and prognosis of neuroendocrine lung tumours; 3) the Spanish Group for Surgical Resection of Colo-Rectal Pulmonary Metastases (GECMP-CCR-SEPAR) that finished the registrationof data from more than 540 patients treated surgically in 2010 and has published 2 papers till now ; and 4) the BronchogenicCarcinoma Cooperative Group II (GCCB-SEPAR-II), specifically created to participate in the Prospective Lung Cancer Staging Project of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer, that already has registered online more than 2600 patients and has published recently the descriptive analysis of the registry.

In 2009, the leadership of these three long-standing initiatives joined their efforts in order to concentrate in a single meeting the updated information on several topics in the fields of general thoracic surgery and thoracic oncology. The result was the First International Joint Meeting on Thoracic Surgery that took place in Barcelona, Spain. National and International Faculty members from all around the world came to Barcelona to share knowledge and experience on relevant topics and novel aspects of the thoracic surgery. The successful result in terms of scientific quality, number of participants and encouraging feedback prompted us to promote the celebration of the second and the third editions of theInternational Joint Meeting on Thoracic Surgery.

In 2015 we will have a new partner: the Ibero-American Association for Thoracic Surgery (Asociación Iberoamericana de Cirugía Torácica, AIACT) who will organize its 23rd annual meeting, under the presidency of Dr. Juan J. Rivas de Andrés, in conjunction and collaboration with the Third International Joint Meeting. This will be the second time the AIACT chooses Spain for its annual meeting. The first time was in Sevilla in 2009 under the presidency of Prof. Dr. Jesús Loscertales. The addition of the AIACT Congress to the Joint Meeting will certainly facilitate the interaction of Ibero-American surgeons with those from distant countries and will enrich the scientific discussions.