For late comers with so many attendees there was standing room only in many sessions like the Presidential Symposia, the ESMO-ASCO Joint Symposium on genomics in breast cancer, the Special Session on Melanoma, and all the Young Oncologist sessions to name a few.
“What’s astonishing in the current financial climate is that attendance is even up on ESMO 2010 which had 15,949 attendees. This shows the importance that oncologists place on the value of our meeting,” said Alan Howard, ESMO CEO.
In the current climate most other medical conferences, he added, are seeing a decrease in attendees. Over 3000 delegates attended the Presidential Session on Sunday where Dr Alice Shaw from Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Centre, Boston, USA, presented her practice changing study on the use of crizotinib in ALK positive NSCLC patients.
Altogether over the last five days 40 sessions have been staged across 110 scientific and 30 educational sessions.
“What’s been really striking to me has been the number of international delegates from outside Europe,” said Dr Erika Martinelli from Seconda Università di Napoli, Italy.
The statistics show that 1116 delegates registered from the US, 539 from Japan, 479 from China, 292 from Argentina, and 258 from Brazil.
“What delegates seem to particularly enjoy about ESMO is the personal touch. People seem to find it a really easy Congress to navigate. It’s the perfect size to get round and achieve an overview of what’s really new in oncology while at the same time having the opportunity to network. You can make lots of new friends,” said Dr Matthias Preusser, from the Comprehensive Cancer Centre, Vienna, Austria. “It shows the human face of oncology.”
One of the biggest hits of 2012 was the play ‘2084', written by Professor Michael Baum and starring our very own president Professor Martine Piccart.
ESMO also staged a strong exhibition with 68 companies having stands displaying the latest drugs and equipment. New for this year was the Society Village where for the first time 28 non profit associations and national and regional medical societies staged displays. Dr Ilya Tsimafeyeu, from the Russian Society of Clinical Oncology (RUSSCO), said that the Society Village had provided RUSSCO with the perfect opportunity to gain more members and meet with other national societies.
All this exciting activity has helped persuade 260 people to join ESMO during the meeting, bringing our membership up to 7,200 members.