ENS-CCA Congress, Rome, 21-23 June

AMMF is a member of the European Network for the Study of Cholangiocarcinoma
(ENS-CCA¹), and was very pleased to be invited to attend the second ENS-CCA congress in Rome, 21 to 23 June 2018.

More than 180 participants attended this congress, all dedicated to working towards improving the future for those with cholangiocarcinoma.

During the three very busy days, 36 studies were presented, including 8 oral presentations by young investigators, much networking was done, and many collaborations were begun …

Amongst the presentations and discussions were:

•  Wide-ranging new collaborative proposals
  covering the following topics:
  Genetic and Epigenetic
  Pathology and Signalling
  Tumor/stroma interaction
  Biomarkers and diagnostic tools
  Clinical and Novel Therapies
• Updated proposals re two European cholangiocarcinoma registries:
  * European Registry Database of CCA (Jesus M. Banales, San Sebastian)
  This proposal, supported by EASL², aims to promote and boost collaborative research projects at basic, translational and clinical levels. Registry includes collection of epidemiological, biochemical and clinical data. Data are collected both retrospectively (from 2010) and prospectively (from 2016): to date, 1604 patients from 14 institutions have been included. This is expected to reach to 2000 patients by autumn 2018, and 3000 patients by the end of 2019. Next goal: monitoring of the data included into the registry in order to improve the data quality.
  *European Histological Registry of CCA Patients (Guido Carpino, Rome)
  This proposal, also supported by EASL², aims to promote and boost collaborative research projects at basic, translational and clinical levels. Registry includes a complete histopathological characterization of 100 CCA FFPE tumors (12-15 tumor slides needed: if possible also surrounding tissue) from patients included in the “European Registry Database of CCA”, and with available CCA frozen tissue, serum and urine. Aim: to correlate the histomorphological characterization of CCA tumors with clinical info and new scientific results (OMICs, biomarkers, etc) derived from collaborative studies with the available samples. So far, ~35 patients have been characterized histologically.

• Working Groups:
  The creation of six different working groups in order to promote collaborations in particular topics was discussed.

The ENS-CCA Family! Rome 2018

The ENS-CCA family, with AMMF’s Helen Morement front centre (to the l of Dr Chiara Braconi of The Royal Marsden UK)

One of AMMF’s major objectives is to support specialised research teams in their work to find the causes, methods of earlier diagnosis, and effective treatments for cholangiocarcinoma. To see current grants awarded, and recently completed awards, go to: https://ammf.org.uk/grants-for-research/

¹ENS-CCA is an association of research groups from twelve European countries, actively working on basic, translational and clinical research into cholangiocarcinoma.

²EASL is a major European association with international influence, dedicated to the liver and liver disease.

June 2018