The upcoming 12th World Congress of the ISDE will be held September 2-5, 2010, in Kagoshima on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Professor Takashi Aikou is the Congress President, and will be ably helped in this effort by Drs. Fujita and Tsubouchi. Please join us for this exciting Congress. Watch this page for updates on abstract submission and meeting registration dates.

Announcements

Please enjoy reading the newest literature watch, which covers January through March, 2009. This feature is contributed by Jennifer Chennat, MD, who is an assistant professor of gastroenterology at The University of Chicago. Dr. Chennat conducts a search of current publications relevant to the esophagus from the world literature, and links to these publications are listed under selected headings. 

The Executive Committee has been busy planning for the future of our society. We have established working committees for scientific program (Co-chairs: Andre Smout, MD, and Yuko Kitagawa, MD), membership (chair: Yvonne Romero, MD), finance (chair: Marco Patti, MD), and ISDE history (co-chairs: Hiroko Ide, MD, and Ivan Cecconello, MD). In the future we will establish committees for consensus statements, database, clinical research, and scholarships.

The next biennial congress of the ISDE is scheduled for September, 2010, in Kagoshima, Japan. Please look for announcements during your visit to DDW in Chicago in May/June 2009.

The 11th World Congress of the ISDE, held in Budapest, Hungary, September 10-13 2008, was a great success. There were nearly 700 attendees who heard almost 500 presentations or posters. The scientific quality of the meeting was outstanding, and the social venues were very entertaining. Our thanks goes to the local organizers, Drs. Kiss, Horvath, Tulassay, and their colleagues.

Our journal, Diseases of the Esophagus, has experienced increased growth in its subscription rate. This is certainly due to the quality of manuscripts submitted by esophagologists from around the world and the dedicated work by our co-editors, Drs. Claude Deschamps and Kenneth Wang. Access to selected articles in Diseases of the Esophagus is available on line. We offer the full text of a feature article from the most recent two issues of Diseases of the Esophagus as well as full text access to classic articles from past issues of our Journal.

President's Message