Dear Colleagues,
It is our pleasure to welcome you to the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) Monothematic Conference on Portal Hypertension: Advances in Knowledge, Evaluation and Management, that will be held in Budapest, Hungary on January 22-24, 2009.
Portal Hypertension is a major complication of patients with chronic liver diseases as its consequences represent the main cause of death and of liver transplantation. Its management, from screening patients with chronic liver disease to diagnosis and therapy is one of the major tasks in the practice of Hepatology. The advent of effective pharmacological, endoscopic and interventional radiological therapy has markedly improved prognosis along the past 25 years. At present, a better understanding of the mechanisms and the molecular pathways leading to development and maintenance of portal hypertension is pointing to a new era where these new concepts are to be translated into new paradigms for therapy. At the same time, new non-invasive (or minimally invasive) diagnostic tests are being introduced and technological advances are dramatically improving the sensitivity, accuracy and applications of imaging techniques and interventional procedures. All these questions will be reviewed in depth at the conference.
Central questions that will be addressed include:
- Pathobiology of the Vascular Endothelium and its relevance in Portal Hypertension
- Mechanisms of hepatic structural changes and its reversibility
- The hyperkinetic syndrome and its mediators
- Angiogenesis and Portal Hypertension
- Diagnostic tests and prognostic models
- The role of HVPG measurements
- Advances in therapy
We look forward to seeing you in Budapest in January for this exciting scientific event.
Sincerely,
Jaime Bosch Andrew K. Burroughs Roberto de Franchis
Organizing Committee