2017 Roma

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

This year’s ELGKS meeting marks the 20th anniversary of the establishment of our society. I’m sure you recall the initial spark to establish the ELGK Society came from physicist H-J Kreiner, motivated by the need to bring together the European practitioners within our subspecialty of Neurosurgery. I am proud to say that over the last 20 years we have met every November without fail – a clear testament to the success of our society!

The agenda for this year’s ELGKS meeting, for which I thank the support and involvement of Bodo Lippitz and Brigitte Gatterbauer, centers around recent crucial developments that may impact our profession for many years to come. I therefore kindly invite you all to join the discussion, share your views and experience in order to help us navigate the rapidly evolving future ahead. I believe that the potential impact of recent changes in our professional fields (neurosurgery, radiotherapy, physics) must be addressed now. Also, I would like to encourage you to contribute, even in an anecdotal format, to “The Grey Corner” mini-session – this session is intended to discuss those negative and thankfully rare occurrences that are otherwise seldom discussed amongst clinicians in a plenary.

Over the last twenty years we have been able to provide a growing number of patients the option of bloodless surgery. This history lends us considerable authority and represents real change in the quality of life and survival of patients. The sheer size of this accomplishment must of course first be credited to the inventor Lars Leksell. He unerringly envisaged the scope, but perhaps not the immense number of people all over the world that are benefitting from his invention.

This city was his home for years and Rome, I believe, fittingly hosts our meeting and this celebration both for this and for the conflicting inescapable reminders of European millennia.

Enrico D.F. Motti, president ELGKS

The meeting took place at:

UNA Hotel Roma
Via Giovanni Amendola 57, 00185, Tel: +39 06 649371
Fax: +39 06 649372
Toll free from Italy: 800 606162
International toll free: 00 800 11211233 (France, Germany, Spain, UK)
http://www.unahotels.it/
una.roma@unahotels.it

In line with our Society’s original custom, the selected venue is a modern hotel in a practical location close to the main Railway station (Roma Termini), with private parking and within walking distance to the city centre and major landmarks.

This year’s ELGKS meeting agenda structure was as follows:

Topics to be covered and tapped speakers:

• Understanding the ICON change of paradigm (A.Franzini, Jean Regis & Patrick Hanssens& Jannie van Schasfoort)
• Bodo Lippitz“How will GK survive the deluge of LINACs”
• Latest on the Study of Cavernoma (Matt Radatz & Roberto Martinez)
• The position of Gamma Knife users after Aruba and the host of contrarian positions being published in the literature (Antonio Nicolato, B.Karlsson)
• A novel index for assessing radiosurgery treatment plan quality (Alex Dimitriadis, Ian Paddick)
• The NHS England SRS Audit (Ian Paddick. Recent President of the ISRS)
• A mini-session – (tentatively titled “the Grey Corner”) dedicated to the discussion of procedures gone wrong (even with techniques other than GK), malpractice suits and“clinical hotspots” that may inadvertently lead to practical and legal traps. These are, thankfully, rare occurrences, but also topics that are seldom discussed amongst clinicians in a plenary. Nonetheless, sharing our experiences and knowledge of these negative experiences is crucial, even if simply to generate awareness.