By Jan Gralla, Pasquale Mordasini, Mirjam Heldner, Sara Pilgram-Pastor, Simon Jung, Urs Fischer
The 8th ESO ESMINT ESNR Stroke Winter School was held, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as a virtual event from 2nd to 4th February 2021. The local organizing committee comprised Prof. Jan Gralla, PD Dr. Pasquale Mordasini, Prof. Simon Jung, PD Dr. Mirjam Heldner, Sara Pilgram-Pastor and Prof. Urs Fischer. Alice Caneva, Michela Mordasini and Martin Zbinden provided administrative support.
The Committee had the difficult task of selecting 96 participants from more than 150 registrations. Participants came from 27 different countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
The primary aim of the 8th ESO ESMINT ESNR Stroke Winter School was to bring together neurologists and neuroradiologists from all over the world to share knowledge on how to enhance interdisciplinary management of patients with ischemic stroke.
This year’s Stroke Winter School started on 2nd February 2021 with a welcome from Prof. Fischer, head of the Neurology Inpatient Department at the University Hospital of Bern. Prof. Martin Dichgans represented the European Stroke Organization (ESO), Prof. Jens Fiehler the European Society of Minimally Invasive Neurological Therapy (ESMINT) and Prof. Jan Gralla the Interventional Neuroradiology Section of the European Society of Neuroradiology (ESNR).
The 35 speakers (13 from the European Union, 18 from Switzerland, and one each from Canada, India, Norway and Vietnam) including neurologists, interventional and non-interventional neuroradiologists, neurosurgeons, and neuropaediatricians led challenging discussions. The teaching program included 30 lectures and 4–6 tutorials with a focus on interdisciplinary treatment of stroke. There were sessions on acute stroke imaging, treatment strategies including endovascular approaches, stroke treatment in difficult circumstances, and requirements for setting up an interdisciplinary stroke center. In the afternoons, tutorials were organized separately for neurologists and neuroradiologists.
Neurologists were able to learn about neuroangiography from an interventional neuroradiologist and they were taught about interpreting CT and MRI by two non-interventional neuroradiologists. Neuroradiologists had the opportunity for learning in small groups about endovascular procedures, management of complications, neurological examination (NIHSS) and advanced imaging in stroke. In addition, both groups of participants were able to discuss interesting cases with neurologists and interventional neuroradiologists and to see some recordings of live cases from the University Hospital of Bern.
During the Stroke Winter School, a faculty meeting was held with members of the ESO, ESMINT and ESNR to discuss future common strategies to enhance the quality of stroke management. The main topic was the possible coordination of training courses for neurologists and neuroradiologists between the three societies.
Thanks are due to the following sponsors who contributed to the realization of the Stroke Winter School:
Angels (Boehringer Ingelheim), Balt, Cerenovus, Medtronic, MicroVention, Penumbra, Phenox, Rapid-Medical, Siemens Healthineers, Stryker and Vascular-Medical.
The local organizing committee thanks all the invited speakers for giving their time and effort to the Stroke Winter School and for delivering such high-quality lectures. Their interest in and passion for teaching the upcoming generation of stroke physicians and neurointerventionalists was clearly
evident.
We are pleased to announce that the 9th ESO ESMINT ESNR Stroke Winter School will be held from 1 – 4 February 2022 in Bern.