Digestive Disease Week. 16-19 May 1999, Orlando, FL, USA

This year's Digestive Disease Week (DDW) was an extensive conclave which encompassed the annual meetings of four different professional societies: the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease (AASLD); the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA); The American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE); and, the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract (SSAT). The meeting offered over 5000 paper presentations and poster sessions; it also comprised postgraduate courses, exhibits, and special educational forums. More than 12,000 physicians, allied health professionals, pharmaceutical industry representatives and research scientists were in attendance, over half of whom came from outside the US. Topics covered ranged from basic physiological research on all aspects of the gastrointestinal tract, liver and pancreas, to pathology of the systems and the effects of therapeutic agents at all stages of development, to disease diagnosis and surgery. The size and scope of the meeting made for an extremely interesting and absorbing four days and provided delegates with wide-ranging opportunities for discussion on the very latest in gastrointestinal thinking.     

The 41st Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Orlando, FL, USA, 13-17 May, 2005

Nearly 29,000 scientists from all over the world gathered at the 41st Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). The programme included the presentation of new data encompassing all the fields of cancer research, including cancer prevention, treatment and biology. Special sessions were added to summarise and discuss achievements in the field of translational research on biologically targeted therapies. Rational drug design based on tumour biology and genetics represents a promising strategy to overcome the limitations of conventional chemotherapy. Increased knowledge in the field of molecular oncology, genetics and progress in technology are revolutionising tumour classification, prognostication, prediction and therapy. However, at present, for most of the diseases, improvements brought about by the newer therapies are small, although clinically meaningful. This review will briefly address some of the most interesting data presented at ASCO 2005.     

American Society of Microbiology - 101st General Meeting. 20-24 May 2001, Orlando, FL, USA

Sessions on prokaryotic genomics, bioinformatics, antibiotic resistance, intrinsic antibacterial resistance, and the identification of novel targets were the main highlights of this year's American Society Microbiology (ASM) meeting. In addition, updates on the status of antimicrobial developmental candidates and recently approved agents, were also discussed.     

Digestive disease week 2001. American association for the study of liver diseases. 19-23 May 2001, Atlanta, GA, USA

All aspects of hepatology were represented at this year's meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), although the meeting was dominated by a proliferation of information in the arena of viral hepatitis. In an international multicenter study of over 1000 treatment-naive patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, sustained virological response was found in 56% of patients who received PEGylated interferon (IFN) alpha-2a (Pegasys; F Hoffmann-La Roche) in combination with ribavirin (Virazole; ICN Pharmaceuticals), versus 45% in patients who received IFN alpha-2b and ribavirin therapy, and 30% of patients who received PEG. This is a significant improvement on currently licensed therapy and will define practice patterns for the next decade. In other areas, novel therapies such as silymarin for cholestatic liver disease, L-dT (Novirio Pharmaceuticals Inc), herbal therapy, combination therapies including amantadine and mycophenolate mofetil (Roche Holding) for viral hepatitis, and long-acting octreotide (Sandostatin LAR Depot; Novartis) for portal hypertension, were presented. This review represents the best of AASLD at DDW 2001.     

38th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. 18-21 May 2002, Orlando, Florida, USA

The American Society of Clinical Oncology 38th Annual Meeting has continued to showcase an increasing number of biological and targeted therapies for the treatment of cancer and its complications. This review will provide an overview of the posters and presentations describing novel biological agents.