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Spine Society of Europe reports increases in membership, abstract submissions

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COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Applications for membership in the Spine Society of Europe have doubled in the past year and abstract submissions for the 2015 EuroSpine Annual Meeting were at an all-time high when the meeting opened, according to EuroSpine president Haluk R. Berk, MD, and Thomas R. Blattert, MD, co-host of the meeting.

Berk and Blattert gave an update on the Spine Society of Europe and this year’s meeting during a press conference, here.

“We have expanded our members within 1 year, nearly double, because it was nearly 500 and now it is approaching 1,000 (full members). In a very short time, we were able to increase our membership numbers,” Berk, of Izmir, Turkey, said.

Haluk R. Berk

Blattert, of Schwarzach, Germany, said for this year’s meeting more than 1,000 abstracts were submitted as paper or poster presentations, which is a more than 70% increase from how many were submitted for the 2014 annual meeting. There is also a new paper category this year — New techniques, imaging, patient safety, infection, complications — and Blattert attributed the increase in abstracts submitted, in part, to that change.

More than 200 submitted abstracts were for that new category alone, he said.

In addition, EuroSpine introduced a new award for the 2015 meeting called the “Best of Outside-Europe Presentation Award.”

The category was a popular one for submissions, according to Blattert.

Another change Blattert discussed is there is the meeting delegates are younger than in past years. The number of members who are 35-years old and younger increased by 4%, he said.

As of the start of the meeting, 1,685 attendees were registered and an additional 190 attendees were registered by Wednesday morning, September 2, according to Berk. – by Robert Linnehan

Reference: Blattert TR, Berk HR. Press Conference. Presented at: EuroSpine Annual Meeting; Sept. 2-4, 2015; Copenhagen, Denmark.

Disclosures: Berk reports he is president of EuroSpine, the Spine Society of Europe. Blattert reports he receives other financial reports from AOSpine and is a consultant for Aesculap, Medtronic and Spontech.