4th SEETRO 2019 - PDF version

4 - 6 October 2019, Ljubljana, Slovenia

With more than 30 lectures and over 120 participants from a dozen countries, the three-day South and East Europe Technology in Radiation Oncology (SEETRO) congress 2019 in Ljubljana, Slovenia, enjoyed success in autumn last year.

Following meetings in Belgrade in 2013, Zagreb in 2015 and Sofia in 2017, Ljubljana, which was the European green capital of 2016, played host to the 4th SEETRO congress.

SEETRO is the regional congress for radiation technologists and therapists (RTTs) in the southern and eastern regions of Europe. It has become the main event for RTTs in this part of Europe, eagerly anticipated every two years and endorsed by ESTRO.

The Ljubljana edition featured not only lectures from RTTs and specialists but also hands-on workshops in the Institute of Oncology in Ljubljana and presentations of new technologies and equipment.

The congress started on Friday 4 October with a short opening ceremony and keynote speech. The scientific programme followed on Friday and Saturday, with workshops on Sunday morning. As the chair of the organising committee, Aleksandra Oklješa Lukič, pointed out in her speech: “This year’s programme is so full; we couldn’t add a single lecture.”

Speakers included Mary Coffey and Michelle Leech, professors at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, where Professor Leech leads the radiation therapy programme. Their lectures were performed by Skype presentations from Dublin, as the sudden bankruptcy and collapse of the Slovenian national airline Adria meant their travel plans had to be cancelled. However, their “long-distance lectures” proved that technology could easily overcome such problems.

The themes of lectures comprised: quality assurance and safety, patient care, education and teaching, stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS), stereotactic radiotherapy (SRT) and stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT), imaging in the planning and treatment process, and modern techniques in radiation therapy. Two joint dinners during the event and a working lunch on Saturday provided ample opportunities for networking, while the breaks between lectures were ideal for visiting display booths organised by providers of RTT equipment and services.

The organisers of SEETRO also met and decided on the venues of the next three SEETRO congresses as follows:  2021 Skopje, North Macedonia;  2023 Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and finally 2025 Istanbul, Turkey.

­­­Aleksandra Oklješa Lukič
Head radiotherapy technologist
Department of Radiotherapy
Institute of Oncology Ljubljana
Ljubljana, Slovenia
aokljesa@onko-i.si

 

The meeting room

 

The participants