11th Asia Pacific Congress of Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiology and the 23rd Annual Scientific Meeting of the Singapore Radiological Society and College of Radiologists Singapore
The 11th Asia Pacific Congress of Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiology (APCCVIR) held in conjunction with the 23rd Annual Scientific Meeting (ASM) of the Singapore Radiological Society (SRS) and College of Radiologists Singapore (CRS) was successfully convened from 15th to 18th May 2014 at The Academia in SGH campus.
Dr Amy Khor, Senior Minister of State for Health and Manpower, was the Guest of Honour for the Opening Ceremony. There were 1042 registrants for the congress of which 458 were from Singapore, 526 from the Asia-Pacific region and 58 from Europe and the Americas. The faculty was 243 strong with 98 Asia-Pacific, 58 International and 87 local faculty members.
The scientific program comprised 3 plenary sessions, 45 scientific symposiums, 11 industry symposiums, 16 workshops and 3 categorical courses with a total of 315 lectures/talks spread over 4 days. Although the topics were mainly on Interventional Radiology, much effort was put in to ensure that there were other topics that catered to the interests of our Diagnostic Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Radiation Oncology colleagues as well as our nurses and radiographers. Some of the highlights of the scientific program included the APSCVIR Meets CIRSE session, the 10th FY Khoo Memorial Lecture delivered by Prof Lenny Tan, the American Institute of Radiologic Pathology (AIRP) mini course, the Multidisciplinary Advanced Course on Venous Access (MACOVA), the Selective Internal Radiation Therapy (SIRT) course, the Embolisation Hands-on course using animal and flow models, the Advanced Body MRI course and Radiation Oncology course featuring Interventional Oncology.
A total of 255 scientific abstracts and posters selected from slightly over 300 abstract submissions were presented during the congress. The top 10 abstracts were presented in the main scientific program as Featured Abstracts in the relevant symposiums and workshops. Mr Tan Ze Hao, a research year medical student from Duke-NUS won the Young Investigator Award on his research on “Angiographic predictors for limb salvage in critical limb ischemia”. Dr Justin Kwan from Tan Tock Seng Hospital won the Best IR Case award while Drs Sachiko Achiwa and Seijiri Inoue from Japan and Dr Sonam Tashi from Changi General Hospital won the best poster awards.
The Congress dinner was held on Saturday evening (17 May) within the Flower Dome at Gardens by the Bay. The dinner was oversubscribed and many had to be turned away. The more than 500 delegates who attended dinner were treated to a night of good food, great entertainment and camaraderie. Several categories of awards were also presented that evening. Dr Jae Hyung Park from Korea and Dr Sanjiv Sharma from India were honoured with the APSCVIR Gold Medal Awards. Dr Chow Khuen Wai, Dr Tan Kim Ping and Dr Tan Ban Cheng were presented with the CRS/SRS Lifetime Achievement Awards. The newly exited specialists from our 3 fields of Diagnostic Radiology, Radiation Oncology and Nuclear Medicine were also welcomed into the Radiological community by CRS and SRS.
There has been very positive and favourable feedback about the congress from both local and overseas delegates. Quite a few senior faculty members from overseas had even proclaimed that this was the best APCCVIR they have attended over the years. We like to thank our Senior Minister of State for taking time off her very busy schedule to grace our Opening Ceremony. The Congress would not have been successful without the efforts of all faculty in providing a very strong scientific programme. The sponsorship provided by our industry was also instrumental in allowing us to run the Congress at this level. Our Organising Committee would like to thank all CRS Fellows and SRS Members for their strong support and presence at the Congress. We would also like to thank our PCO, The Meeting Lab for their professionalism and hard work as well as both the CRS and SRS secretariats for providing support for the Congress.
Assoc Prof Tay Kiang Hiong
General Secretary, Organising Committee,
11th APCCVIR and 23rd ASM of SRS & CRS
