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Orthopaedic and traumatology practice impacted by 20th EFORT Congress in Lisbon
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A month ago, the doors of the 20th Anniversary EFORT Congress in Lisbon closed following positive feedback about the meeting from many of faculty members and attendees.
During this 2019 edition of the annual meeting, the topic “Registries & Impact on Practice” generated key topics in joint arthroplasty within the scientific program and provided an expert focus on medical device surveillance. Indeed, the Lisbon program importantly reflected the work of the EFORT standing committee NORE — Network of Orthopaedic Registries of Europe — to provide advice and awareness on medical device surveillance and its outcomes at an international level.
Several sessions, such as the Michael Freeman Honorary Lecture entitled, “Lessons learned from the Australian Registries,” presented by Dr. Richard De Steiger, as well as the Invited Nation Symposium entitled, “Metal-on-metal hip arthroplasty outcomes and the remaining problems,” enhanced the scientific content with outstanding orthopaedic and trauma (O&T) research and in-depth work around registry studies. With this approach, EFORT confirmed that medical practice acted as a bridge theme among members of the O&T community, which will lead to long-term delivery of better health care and improvement in patients’ quality of life.
Medical device regulatory issues
Moreover, the discussion forum on the Medical Device Regulation (MDR) presented as a plenary session on Friday 7 June put forward the necessity for medical associations, European and national regulators and the medical device industry to share information about the new regulatory systems to be set up for health care professionals. Indeed, the MDR and the In Vitro Diagnostic Regulation, both published in May 2017, settled the implementation of 18 system-critical acts (identified by the European Commission as mandatory) for which an appropriate infrastructure has to be established. This includes expert panels and reference laboratories, the agreement of common specifications and the publication of standards and guidelines that would allow uniformity in the interpretation and application of the regulations.
EFORT is concerned that if full achievement of the aims and objectives of this legislation is not reached by the end of the transition period, which is rapidly approaching, not only will the introduction of improved devices be impacted, but also the necessary review of all devices currently in use will not be complete. This could result in non-availability or even withdrawal of implants and devices currently in widespread use. The sizable attendance at this session and all the questions it raised among the O&T community corroborated the real need for educating and informing health care professionals on these new regulations to fill the gaps between all the involved parties.
Scientific exchange
In addition to the above-mentioned highlighted sessions, the scientific program in Lisbon covered more than 180 sessions, including the Comprehensive Review Course, which provides, in a single day, a quick analysis of the basic and fundamental knowledge of orthopaedic surgery and traumatology with specific examples of a standard interim assessment.
Of 3,623 abstracts submitted, a final amount of 740 selected free papers, 90 clinical cases and 1,160 posters were presented during three days of intensive scientific exchange.
The EFORT Executive Committee would like to extend its gratitude to all the experts taking an active part in the scientific program, for their invaluable contribution to this high-level meeting that efficiently fulfilled the participants’ needs. A meeting with such an ambitious educational goal would not have succeeded so well without the active sharing of faculty members and abstract submitters.
We hope the EFORT Congress has helped facilitate important meetings between friends and colleagues and produced many lasting impressions and memories for all attendees. For added educational value for the congress participants, more than 85% of the presentations given during the congress are now available in the EFORT scientific library.
The official pictures of the congress are now available at the EFORT Congress Lisbon 2019 Photo Gallery.
We hope to meet you again during the upcoming 21st EFORT Congress to be held 10 to 12 June 2020 in Vienna.
- For more information:
- 2019 Advanced Scientific Programme
- EFORT e-Science platform
- 21st EFORT Congress in Vienna