Dear friends and colleagues,

It was great to see all of you in Stockholm and made the EANO 2018 meeting so nice, and fruitful in increasing our common knowledge in order to enhance our possibility to improve the care of patients that suffer from tumours in CNS. 

The 13th EANO Conference with the Brain Tumor Club and the Educational Day included more than 900 participants from 59 countries and from all continents. This positive signals of the EANO meetings was further substantiated in Stockholm by the high quality science presented in 381 posters, and by 131 different speakers chaired by 75 different colleagues from most of the countries in Europe and from other continents. The scientific presentations showed up a high plethora of important subjects in the field of neuro-oncology. It was also wonderful to see the improvement from the gender perspective with 50% of the participants from both sexes. Among the speakers and chairs, 40% were females from all ages. This diversity is really a good sign that EANO annual meetings has become a meeting for the whole of Europe and attracting colleagues from all continents. “The youngster initiative” , including an increased number of speakers and chairs at this meeting from the younger age group,  is also an excellent example of this efforts in our society.

The Educational Day was separated in two main blocks, one more directed to biological and clinical perspective and one more focused on various aspects of supportive care. An international panel of distinguished speakers from different scientific areas presented high quality updates on basic, translational, clinical and supportive care perspective. Both blocks attracted a high number of attendees from all ages with various experiences, and the insightful presentations and discussions further increased the value of this important day. For more detail of the program click here.

For the first time, we had an active participation of patients and proxys in the organisation of the meeting and as active participants in various sessions. These essential sessions also attracted a great number of the participants from all areas of research and cancer care in neuro-oncology.

At the conference venue at Stockholm Waterfront in the center of Stockholm city, Monica from the Swedish team together with Magdalena from the EANO Office as well as Anja and Patricia from VMA congress team took care in a professional and nice way of all practical issues around the scientific and social events. Not at least to mention the networking events at the Town City Hall (sponsored generously by the Stockholm County and City) and at the EANO evening. My sincere thanks and gratitude to you who has done all the work in the backstage.

We were happy when Sweden was given the responsibility for EANO 2018, and it has been a real pleasure to interact with a lot of wonderful people from different positions in the health care and research, representing the EANO Board, scientific committee, sponsors as well as with my colleagues in the national and Nordic groups for treatment of CNS tumours. Not to forget the most interesting and valuable involvement of patients and proxys in our work. We need to do more of this! Finally, even if we are in many ways of the same kind regardless of where were are from, we also need to put efforts in understanding that we are influenced by our own background and the cultural context we live in at our homes. There is room for improvement in our understanding. When will we have the first female as a president?  

Many thanks for your contribution, and have a really good time wherever you are.

Roger Henriksson,
President EANO 2018 meeting
Professor in Experimental Oncology and Chief Physician Oncology & Radiotherapy
University of Umeå and Stockholm County
Sweden