Source: The Sixth Affiliated Hospital
Written by: Jian Wenyang, Dai Xi’an
Translated by: Tang Jian, Zhi Min
Edited by: Wang Dongmei

The 3rd Annual Meeting of AOCC (Asian Organization of Crohn`s and Colitis) was held in Beijing on June 18th-20th, 2015. Nine hundred and two representatives from seventeen countries, including China, South Korea, Japan, America, Australia, Singapore, India, Thailand and Malaysia, attended the conference. This was the first time that the annual meeting of AOCC was held in China after the previous meeting in Seoul and Tokyo.

The chairman of the 3rd Annual Meeting of AOCC was Professor Pinjin Hu, a distinguished expert specialized in gastroenterology and the chief of IBD Center in The Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University. Professor Hu was also the chairman of AOCC and former leader of the inflammatory bowel disease group in the Chinese Medical Association.

Professor Jiaming Qian announced the opening of the meeting on the morning of June 19th. After the opening ceremony, the meeting continued at two separate venues. During one and a half day, seventy-two lectures, two breakfast meetings, and four satellite meetings covering all the aspects of IBD were conducted. Four hundred and two abstracts had been submitted to the conference, and there was a special area for poster exhibition outside the venue.

Distinguished experts in IBD, including Professor Simon Travis, Professor David Rubin, Professor Toshifumi Hibi, Professor Mamoru Watanabe and Professor Hyo Jong Kim, joined the panel discussion chaired by Professor Jiaming Qian.

On the afternoon of June 20th, in the session of The Future Perspective of IBD in Asia, Professor Hu, as the chairman of this meeting, gave a speech entitled “The Future of AOCC”, in which he pointed out that AOCC was in a critical moment and was faced with both opportunities and challenges.

As Professor Hu said in his speech, along with the great social development, the incidence rate of IBD has risen quickly in many Asian countries. Because of the ethnic variations between Caucasian and Asian population, the pathogenesis of IBD in eastern countries was different from western countries. We could pay our attention to this target and tried to find the causes of IBD.

Biological agent was widely used in western countries and was thought to be the start of new era in IBD treatment. While in eastern countries, biological agent was less used due to the huge expense which can’t be afforded by many Asian patients. Based on the different use of biological agent, Professor Hu indicated that AOCC should notice our special circumstances and worked out new biological agent strategy in consideration of different economic conditions.

Professor Hu also indicated that ECCO was the perfect example of cooperation among different countries. AOCC should learn from the successful experience of ECCO but not completely copy them. AOCC needs to find its own way to accommodate the current circumstance and further development of Asian IBD.

The next annual meeting of AOCC will be held in Kyoto, Japan in 2016.