ISGE VIDEOS

Dr. Tamer Seckin:  This is Dr. Tamer Seckin in Bari, Italy, 17th annual ISG meeting.  I have the pleasure of introducing you to all ISG viewers around the world, our young laparoscopist, new members and the old friends who are watching this video clip.  I have Lone Hummelshoj from England, who is head of World Endometriosis Foundation or congress, how do you say that?
Lone Hummelshoj:  The World Endometriosis Society.
Dr. Tamer Seckin:  The World Endometriosis Society.  It says it all.  It is the World Endometriosis.  That is most important.  They had a very successful meeting at Melbourne, Australia.  I want her to wrap up the meeting and then I want her to get into her challenges for the future of recognition of endometriosis.  It is a number one pelvic disease that involves woman's health in the world.  Lone?
Lone Hummelshoj:  Thank you Dr. Seckin.  It's absolutely right.  In March, we had almost a 1,000 delegates attending the 10th World Congress in endometriosis, which was also the 10th anniversary of the World Endometriosis Society.  I think the fact that we managed to get a 1,000 people to come to Australia demonstrates that we are beginning to see an increased focus on this disease, don't you agree?
Dr. Tamer Seckin:  That’s right, yes.
Lone Hummelshoj:  And, I think, what was telling from that meeting as well was there were a lot of young people there, and we saw some very exciting science being presented and some very interesting debates about the surgical management of the disease, which is very interestingly for the laparoscopists out there isn’t necessarily always the first route of treatment in all woman with suspected endometriosis.  There was also very stimulating debate about how we handle the adolescent.  And I wish I could tell you that there was a magnificent conclusion, but there isn't.  I think, it's still a challenge on how we deal with those young women who present with symptoms suggestive of endometriosis.  Excitingly, the International Gene Study announced an almost $2 million grant provided for the next year to look further into the genetics of endometriosis, a great chunk of that funding came from the Welcome Trust in the United Kingdom, which is actually a recognition of endometriosis as a serious disease.  I think, we came out with some very, very interesting things in Melbourne, but we have a lot of challenges ahead of us still because as professor D'Hooghe mentioned in his keynote lecture, the actual cost of the disease, the impact of endometriosis on society is not that well documented.  He had the audacity to say what I am now going to repeat that maybe the lack of funding that we are seeing in endometriosis is because it is a female disease and that a lot of decision makers are male.  I know, this is provocative, but I wonder whether there is some truth to it.  What do you think?
Dr. Tamer Seckin:  Well it is difficult to deny that fact.  In fact, the endometriosis being a taboo traditionally is not well recognized and when it comes to money, very few wants to give the money for disease.  I think, we do have also responsibility.  We have also kept this disease always in the black hole in enigmatic format without.  It’s been rather late to really talk about most obvious things like the delay in diagnosis.  The importance of early diagnosis and how many young and adolescents are misdiagnosed, mistreated and misrouted from emergency room from one gastroenterologist to another family physician by the time they come back to a gynecologist.  Unfortunately most gynecologists are not even trained to do the disease.  So, we all have responsibility.  I think, I see challenges ahead, for that reason we have initiated Endometriosis Foundationof America to also disseminate the news and inform people and make early excision and treatment and diet approaches, the medical approaches, have a value and see what they play in these woman.  I want to hear what your challenges would be?  For all of us, I think we look at your work as a very important work.  You are leading this area with your expertise.  What do you see as challenges ahead for educating the public and getting more funds?
Lone Hummelshoj:  I think in terms of educating the public, we need to get to legislators now.  We need to start working with decisions makers in our society and make them understand that this is a disease with socioeconomic impact.  In addition, to what you are doing, what you are saying is with your foundation you are going to be raising awareness of excision surgery and the importance of early diagnosis and complete surgery.  The other side of that point is research and that is something that is very close to my heart because sitting through a lot of meetings what we see is that the end of a study is this study wasn't well powered enough to give us powerful enough conclusions, so we need more research.  To that end this has been addressed by the World Endometriosis Society together with the ASRM and ESHRE we have founded the World Endometriosis Research Foundation and it has got two missions; one is to facilitate multicenter, international well powered clinical trials with sufficient numbers so that the results have statistical significance, and to get a nice big fat pot of money together to be able to fund basic research, so that basic researches can apply for funding to research disease mechanisms so that we can get closer to finding the cause for this disease and ultimately prevention.  So that is what we have ahead of us.  One of the ways we are going to address the latter part of the basic research is that in a couple of month's time we will be announcing formally the establishment of international research networks so that we have all these basic researchers working together and not in isolation, which we have seen happen so often before.  Great challenges but I am hopeful too that with this global collaboration, we are going to get somewhere.
Dr. Tamer Seckin:  Well on behalf of ISGE website, I like to thank the ISG Board and Executive Board for all the help to supporting us.  Again, my thanks goes to Lone.  It seems like we have great challenges ahead.  I wish you good luck and we will be working together Lone.  It’s a pleasure to have you.
Lone Hummelshoj:  We will indeed.  Thank you.
Dr. Tamer Seckin:  Thank you.