Nov 10, 2009
School of Medicine, Kochi
The Indian Head and Neck Cancer Congress was organized by the Foundation for Head and Neck Oncology at the Amrita Health Sciences Campus to coincide with its 9th annual meet during Oct 22 -26, 2009.
Attended by over 200 delegates from premier institutions in India, Israel, Finland, UK, Germany, Belgium, Czech Republic and the United States, the meet was inaugurated by three cancer survivors who lit the ceremonial lamp, in concordance with the theme — From Despair to Hope.
The meet was addressed by the Presidents of head and neck societies from Israel, Dr. Dan Fliss and the Czech Republic, Dr. Jan Klozar.
Dr. Pierre Deleare from University of Leuven in Belgium spoke about the first tracheal transplant performed in the world and Dr. Risto Kontis from Helsinki University in Finland elaborated about stem cell biology and tissue engineering.
Significant issues addressed during the meet included preservation of mandible during cancer ablation, laryngotracheal reconstruction, use of navigation surgery and current developments in sentinel node biopsy.
Other topics addressed in the talks included aesthetic refinements and dental rehabilitation in mandibular reconstruction, computer assisted head and neck reconstruction and skull base reconstruction. Papers presented covered the entire spectrum of head and neck reconstruction.
The final day, October 26, was observed as National Head and Neck Research Day. The day was devoted to discussions on basic/ translational research in Head and Neck Oncology. Concept sheets for proposed research were competitively evaluated by senior officials from ICMR and DBT, the funding agencies of the Government of India.
Dr. Arun Pattatheyil from Amrita’s Head and Neck Surgery Department won the FHNO cash award for the best basic science/ translational research proposal titled — Establishment of differential gene expression profiles as predictors of nodal and distant metastasis in head and neck squamous carcinomas.
Dr Azhar Jan Battoo, Head and Neck Oncology Fellow won the FHNO Gold Medal for best paper for his presentation titled Selective Neck Dissection for Node Positive Neck.
The meet was coordinated by the Amrita’s Head and Neck Surgery Department and led by Drs. Moni Abraham Kuriakose, Subramania Iyer and P. Arun.
The week prior to the Congress saw pre-conference workshops and CME programs organized at the same venue for participants.
The CME program included a one-day cadaver flap harvesting demonstration course. Top surgeons from Kerala and Chennai demonstrated the commonly performed microvascular flaps on a cadaver from the anatomy dissection hall.
A microsurgery-training program was also conducted in Amrita’s surgical skills laboratory. The CME program addressed IMRT Contouring Guidelines and Evaluation of IMRT plans in Head and Neck Cancer.
