After a turbulent 2020 with the unfortunate cancellation of many meetings, including ours, it is a great pleasure to invite you to join us for the 16th annual EANO meeting, to be held on September 23 – 26, 2021 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

As usual, the annual conference will kick off with an Education Day on Thursday, September 23 and the main programme will commence on Friday, September 24. The Scientific Committee invited speakers from across the globe that will present the latest clinical trial outcomes and highlight key advances in basic and translational science. Key clinical themes of the Rotterdam 2021 meeting will include experimental and combination therapies, the latest on radiation oncology technologies, neurosurgical precision tools, advanced imaging modalities and the latest developments in diagnostics including methylome analysis and NGS.

The meeting will be held in the largest European seaport, a splendid environment to meet. Located 25 minutes by train from Amsterdam airport with the convention centre just across the square in front of the main train station, the meeting is effectively in the heart of the Netherlands. Rotterdam is famous for its rapidly evolving architecture, its festivals, its cultural exhibitions, and a fascinating old and new harbour.

The 2020 COVID year has been a rough year and has affected the lives of many – health-wise, financially or both. The many cancellations of scientific meetings, including our face-to-face EANO 2020 meeting, have had an impact on each and every one of us. Now that the first phases of this crisis have passed, resuming activities while trying to control the pandemic is key to restore regular healthcare, including the care for brain tumour patients. For the optimal care for our patients and the facilitation of continued development of our field, exchange of information, education, and the training of the next generation are of paramount importance. We have achieved a lot with e-meetings and webinars, but that does not compare to in-person meetings. EANO is dedicated to its 2021 meeting but still remains fully aware that exceptional circumstances may develop again and is prepared for that.

EANO is developing a face-to-face 2021 programme but is also prepared to adapt to a changing situation. Should circumstances require so, an advanced e-programme will be presented: educational and scientific needs are more prominent than ever and must be met. Regular care and scientific advance must go on! Our patients are facing unmet needs.

Industry has been our partner, as we share a common goal: a better outcome for brain tumour patients. We invite you to join us and to support us, through these challenging times. Together we can make a difference for patients struck with a devastating disease!

Matthias Preusser, EANO President and Martin van den Bent, Local Host, EANO Past-President

The situation around the COVID-19 pandemic with international, national and local travel and meeting limitations necessitated cancelation of the EANO 2020 Meeting in Glasgow. We are very grateful for the major efforts by the Scientific and Local Committee during preparation of the meeting! We are making concrete plans for Glasgow as host city for another annual EANO Meeting in the near future- mark your calendars for October 2024!

Due to the upcoming pandemic and uncertain situation the EANO Winter School 2020, planned for March in Warsaw had to be postponed to 2021.

Nevertheless, we are planning for the next Winter School to be held in 2022.

A lot of highly relevant research has appeared during the past year, and there is a continuous need for education. We have therefore decided to provide webinars to our membership on a regular basis. Starting with a three-day series of webinars on the initial date of our 2020 Meeting we continued to provide webinars focusing also on specific membership groups like allied health professionals and the Youngsters and granting CME credits. Videos of the following webinars are provided in the membership area.

• EANO webinar on Cancer Neuroscience: on neurons, glioma and the immune system, September 9, 2020
• EANO webinar on Brain metastatic disease in the targeted era: improved outcome by changed strategies, September 10, 2020
  
• Joint EANO-EAN Webinar on Neurotoxicity from antineoplastic treatments, September 11, 2020
• EANO webinar on Psycho-social support interventions for patients and caregivers, September 23, 2020
  
• EANO webinar Tumorboard 1 How to treat an elderly patient with glioblastoma and Lower grade glioma, October 7, 2020
  
• EANO webinar on Outcome assessments section, October 21, 2020
  
• EANO webinar Tumorboard 2 How to treat a patient with brain metastases? November 4, 2020
• EANO webinar on novel insights on hypermutated IDH mutated gliomas and temozolomide treatment of IDHwt astrocytoma, December 2, 2020

• EANO webinar on EANO Guidelines December 16, 2020 16:00-17:30 (CET) (content educational)
  Chair: Martin van den Bent, Rotterdam/NL
  - The revised EANO guidelines for glioma, Michael Weller, Zurich/CH
  - The EANO medulloblastoma guideline: overview of the main points, Peter Hau, Regensburg/DE

For the upcoming year many more webinars on diverse topics with input from all our committees are planned for the afternoon (CET) of the last Wednesday of each month. The topics and dates will be communicated via our newsletter, social media and on our homepage.

• EANO webinar on NeuroRadiotherapy 101 January 13, 2021 16:00-17:30 (CET) (content educational)
  Chair: Nicolaus Andratschke, Zurich/CH and Amélie Darlix, Montpellier/FR
  - Basic science for the non radiotherapist: Everything you wanted to know and were embarrassed to ask, Elizabeth Cohen-Jonathan Moyal, Toulouse/FR
  - Making heads and tails of scientific and clinical advances in modern radiotherapy: Protons, Advances, Anthony Chalmers, Glasgow/UK

• EANO webinar on Best of SNO January 27, 2021 16:00-17:30 (CET) (content scientific)
  Chair: Riccardo Soffietti, Torino/IT and Matthias Preusser, Vienna/AT
  -  Best basic science Abstracts, Felix Sahm, Heidelberg/DE
  - Best Clinical abstracts (primary brain tumors and brain mets), Martin van den Bent,  Rotterdam/NL

• EANO webinar on Disparity in Neuro-oncology, does it matter in daily clinical practice? February 24, 2021 16:00-17:30 (CET) (content educational)
  Chair: Florien Boele, Leeds/UK and Emilie Le Rhun, Zurich/CH
  - Women in Neuro-Oncology: perspectives from 3 different countries:
  Natividad Gomez Roman, Strathclyde/UK
  Evangelia Razis,  Athens/GR
  Roberta Rudà, Treviso/IT
  - LGBTQ in Neuro-Oncology, Martin Taphoorn, Leiden/NL
  - Racial disparities: the AROME model, Ahmed Idbaih, Paris/FR
  

The Youngsters Committee (Anna Berghoff, AT (Chair), Marjolein Geurts, NL (co-chair), Simona Gaito, IT/UK, Asgeir Jakola, SE (Mentor Executive Board), Barbara Kiesel, AT, Alessia Pellerino, IT, George Petrescu, RO, Aleksandar Stanimirovic, SI, Iris Verploegh, NL, Hiba Wanis, UK, Jan-Michael Werner, DE) supports the Scientific Committee in developing the annual EANO Meeting programme with special focus on career development in Neuro-Oncology and topics relevant for the next generation of neuro-oncologists.

The Youngster Committee coordinated two eEANO webinars in 2020 in the format of interdisciplinary tumorboards and will contribute to the 2021 webinar programme.

Among the new projects under development is a mentoring programme, which is being designed together with the Educational Committee.

The Scientific Committee (Michael Platten, DE (chair), Manuel Valiente, ES (next-chair), Florien Willemijn Boele, UK, Antonella Castellano, IT, Elizabeth Cohen-Jonathan Moyal, FR, Pim French, NL, Oliver Hanemann, UK, Darren Hargrave, UK, Benedikte Hasselbalch, DK, Asgeir Jakola, SE, Tareq Juratli, DE, Christian Mawrin, DE, Federico Pessina, IT, Matthias Preusser, AT and Jan-Michael Werner, DE (Representative Youngster)) with support of the Educational Committee, the Yougsters Committee and the Disparity Committee is in charge of developing the scientific programme of the annual EANO Meeting.

Due to this year’s exceptional COVID-19 situation the EANO 2020 Annual Meeting planned for September 10-13 in Glasgow, UK had to be cancelled and was substituted by a series of webinars that were organized by the Scientific Committee.

The Scientific Committee will also contribute to the EANO webinar programme foreseen to continuously provide scientific content to EANO members in 2021.

The Publishing Activity Committee (Wolfgang Wick, DE (Chair), Martin Taphoorn, NL (next-chair) Linda Dirven, NL, Francois Ducray, FR, Norbert Galldiks, DE, Monika Hegi, CH, Martin Klein, DE, Katrin Lamszus, DE, Simone Niclou, LU, Matthias Preusser, AT, Patrick Roth, CH, Roberta Rudà, IT, Felix Sahm, DE, Susan Short, UK, Riccardo Soffietti, IT, Martin Van den Bent, NL, Michael Weller, CH, Pieter Wesseling, NL) consists of editors that represent EANO in the following journals: Neuro-Oncology, Neuro-Oncology Practice and Neuro-Oncology Advances. The main tasks of the committee are to ensure scientific representation of EANO in the journals, providing a link between EANO and the journal publisher and promoting the publication activities within the EANO membership.

The Guidelines Committee (Martin Van den Bent, NL (Chair), Matthias Preusser, AT (next-chair), Michel Weller,CH (past-chair), Roland Goldbrunner, DE, Roger Henriksson, SE, Michael Jenkinson, UK, Emilie Le Rhun, CH, Giuseppe Minniti, IT, Alessia Pellerino, IT, (Representative Youngsters), Roberta Rudà, IT, Ghazaleh Tabatabai, DE, Patrick Wen, USA) continued also in 2020 with developing and updating guidelines in the field of neuro-oncology. The following guidelines were published in 2020 (see also www.eano.eu/publications/eano-guidelines/):

Wen PY, Weller M, Lee EQ, Alexander BA, Barnholtz-Sloan JS, Barthel F, Batchelor TT, Bindra RS, Chang SM, Chiocca EA, Cloughesy TF, DeGroot JF, Galanis E, Gilbert MR, Hegi M, Horbinsky C, Huang RY, Lassman AB, Le Rhun E, Lim M, Mehta MP, Mellinghoff IK, Minniti G, Nathanson D, Platten M, Preusser M, Roth P, Sanson M, Schiff D, Short SC, Tonn JC, Tsang J, Verhaak R, von Deimling A, Wick W, Zadeh G, Reardon DA, Aldape KD, van den Bent MJ.
Glioblastoma: A Society For Neuro-Oncology (SNO) and European Society of Neuro-Oncology (EANO) Consensus Review on Current Management and Future Directions.
Neuro Oncol. 2020 Aug 17;22(8):1073-1113. doi: 10.1093/neuonc/noaa106.PMID: 32328653

Jordan B, Margulies A, Cardoso F, Cavaletti G, Sagstuen H, Jahn P, Le Rhun E, Preusser M, Scotté F, Taphoorn MJB, Jordan K, on behalf of the ESMO Guidelines Committee, the EONS Education Working Group and the EANO Guideline Committee.
Systemic anticancer therapy-induced peripheral and central neurotoxicity: ESMO–EONS–EANO Clinical Practice Guidelines for diagnosis, prevention, treatment and follow-up.
Ann Oncol. 2020 Oct;31(10):1306-1319. doi: 10.1016/j.annonc.2020.07.003. Epub 2020 Jul 30.

Roth P, Pace A, Le Rhun E, Weller M, Ay C, Cohen-Jonathan Moyal E,Coomans M, Giusti R, Jordan K, Nishikawa R, Winkler F, Hong JT, Ruda R, Villà S, Taphoorn MJB,Wick W, Preusser M, on behalf of the EANO Executive Board, on behalf of the ESMO GuidelinesCommittee.
Neurological and vascular complications of primary and secondary brain tumours: EANO-ESMO Clinical Practice Guidelines for prophylaxis, diagnosis, treatment and follow-up.
Annals ofOncology (2020), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annonc.2020.11.003.

Weller M, van den Bent MJ, Preusser M, Le Rhun E, Tonn JC, Minniti G, Bendszus M, Balana C, Chinot O, Dirven L, French P, Hegi ME, Jakola AS, Platten M, Roth P, Rudà R, Short S, Smits M, Taphoorn MJB, von Deimling A, Westphal M, Soffietti R, Reifenberger G, Wick W, for the European Association for Neuro-Oncology (EANO) Task Force on Diffuse Gliomas.
European Association of Neuro-Oncology (EANO) guideline on the diagnosis and treatment of diffuse gliomas of adulthood.
Nature Rev Clin Oncol (in press)

For the upcoming year several updated and new guidelines are planned and in development.

The Educational Committee (Evangelia Razis, GR (Chair), Riccardo Soffietti, IT (past-chair), Vera Lúcia Barbosa, PT, Helen Bulbeck, UK, Mihaela Lorger, SI/UK, Simone Niclou, LU, Claudia Panciroli, IT/ES, George Pretrescu, RO, (Representative Youngsters), Karin Piil, DK, Stephen Price, UK, Marco Riva, IT, Maria Angeles Vaz Salgado, ES) together with the Scientific and Youngsters Committee is responsible for the development of the programme for the Educational Day of the EANO annual Meeting. Further tasks of the committee are to develop the programme for educational eEANO webinars, and foster educational cooperation with other disciplines and societies.

The Disparity Committee (Emilie Le Rhun, FR/CH (Chair), Susan Short, UK (next-chair), Florien Boele, UK, Linda Dirven, NL, Marjolein Geurts, NL (Representative Youngsters), Minniti Giuseppe, IT, Taphoorn Martin, NL, Simone Niclou, LU, Galldiks Norbert, DE, Karin Piil, DK, Roberta Rudà, IT) overseas and ensures a balanced representation of faculty of the annual EANO Meeting in terms of diversity. It provides input to Executive Board on diversity topics and with diversity committees of other societies (e.g. SNO). For the future the committee will contribute to the programme of the eEANO webinars with topics on disparity/diversity issues. Further actions and activities will be set up and developed, based on results of the survey among EANO members, published in 2020:

Le Rhun E, Weller M, Niclou SP, Short S, Piil K, Boele F, Rudà R, Theodorou M, Brandsma D, van den Bent M, Dirven L.Gender issues from the perspective of health-care professionals in Neuro-oncology: an EANO and EORTC Brain Tumor Group survey. Neurooncol Pract. 2020 Mar;7(2):249-259. doi: 10.1093/nop/npz053. Epub 2020 Jan 10.PMID: 32206322