XII Congress Brazilian Society of Surgery Oncology
XII Brazilian Congress on Surgical Oncology
Dr Claudio Quadros - San Rafael Hospital, Sao Paulo, Brazil
This congress is the first time that the congress of the Brazilian Society of Surgical Oncology occurs not in the cities but here in Sao Paulo. All the other congresses were there, the first time it comes to a state in the north-east of Brazil and this is a thing that the society, the Brazilian Society of Surgical Oncologists, is starting to do, that is starting to become more regionalised. The theme of the congress is the surgeon as a prognostic factor, showing that surgical oncology is very important in the treatment of patients with cancer. Of course we need to have discussions with all the multidisciplinary team but we believe that a surgeon really needs to lead, he needs to participate, because surgery, well done surgery with oncological principles makes all the difference in the treatment of patients with cancer.
We’re bringing 53 international speakers, if we count all the other personnel that are involved in the congress, as you are, as international guests we will have 63 international guests, so it’s a big number. We have 357 speakers, mostly from Brazil, and today we are going to start the congress today but we already have 1,519 enrolled, registered, attendees so we expect it will probably get to 1,700. It’s a congress that has a lot of simultaneous programmes; so today we had eight rooms that were having their own programme. So all these people, they are split in very different rooms. But I think that all that we wanted to do we were able to do and we’re very, very glad with everything that is happening here in the congress.
How do you see the future of oncology in Brazil?
It is a problem; cancer is the second most leading cause of death in Brazil. So it’s a problem of public health in Brazil and also in Latin America. We are also creating the Latin America Society of Surgical Oncology; the first step that we are doing here in this congress to see if we can gather other colleagues from other countries from Latin America and see if together we can become stronger and help ourselves and exchange experiences so we can treat better our patients.
