Dear friends,

We are organising the 6th TOWARDS NEW STANDARDS Symposium in colorectal cancer on December 5-6 in Bruges, Belgium.

The concept is again to provide in depth scientific information and provide a forum for discussion for all care providers, highlighting the importance of a multidisciplinary approach.

On Thursday different workshops and a pre-symposium seminar dedicated to nurses will be organized.

• In total, 4 workshops will be organized, focusing different topics and healthcare professionals: In the trainee session, basics of the watch and wait strategy in rectal cancer will be explained by experts such as Prof. R.O. Perez who pioneered and championed this approach.
• In the collaborative session, the focus will be on the progress in ERP for colon and rectal cancer and the possibilities of ambulatory colectomy.
• There will be a masterclass on the neoadjuvant platform in colon cancer still a debated approach !
• We also want to launch a Rectal cancer Improvement project that will allow every center to standardize the diagnosis and treatment of rectal cancer.

In the main symposium we again try to offer a programme that will cover current needs to progress:

Today we want to share with you already a glimpse of the programme:

• regrowth after watch and wait (Is it that innocent making the link to the need to improve on multimodal assessment of clinical complete remission?);
• the role of immunotherapy in rectal cancer but also in MSI high colon cancer and is there some place in MSS tumors;
• different ways of making a distal anastomosis (Is TTSS the wholy grale ? What about omitting a stoma and a delayed anastomosis (Turnbull Cultait) and is there still a place for double stapled anastomosis. This is not only important information for surgeons but also for Gastroenterologist to understand the rationale behind the different options.) ​​​​​​

There will be ample occasion to meet and greet each other.

The full programme will soon be available on the website. Keep an eye on www.towardsnewstandards.be and block your calendars! 

.