ESGO & ENGOT Leadership statement

A message from the ESGO & ENGOT Leadership in the Era of COVID-19:

Supporting Gynaecological Oncology Professionals with Practical Advice for the Management of Patients and Clinical Trials

 

 

Dear friends and colleagues,

The last weeks have brought an unprecedented time in world history since World War II. All countries are now facing an invisible enemy that affects the safety and life of citizens and distorts our society. While all of us are trained to fight cancer, we now find ourselves in battle with a microscopic disease in the form of a virus.

ESGO and ENGOT are a family where members need to support one another; we live in the same house and share the same spirit. But as currently physical borders are closed, and many of our countries are living in confinement, our usual way to maintain the ESGO and ENGOT community (meetings, courses) need to be redefined for the next months.

We think that in such turbulent times, both organizations have a role and responsibility to maintain the connection among our community and to continue to define and improve the specific management of our patients.

This special newsletter is the first in a series of communications that we are preparing to help support you in caring for your patients during the coronavirus crisis. Most of the health authorities in our countries are producing protocols and guidance; some change from one day to the next. We aim to provide complementary and specific advice for gynaecological cancer patients.

Consequently, we have prepared a webinar on the specific topic of pragmatic strategies and gynaecological cancer management in the era of COVID-19 disease. This webinar will be launched on March 31, 2020 at 18:00 CEST and will be given by colleagues who have had the first-hand experience of managing gynaecological cancer patients during this period. They will present a variety of real cases and will be available to respond to questions during the webinar.

We would like to take this opportunity to announce that ENGOT has prepared a summary of the measures that the Regulatory Agencies and the ENGOT co-operative groups are producing to guide the management of clinical trials during this period. You can read it here.

While this pandemic is unprecedented in our lifetimes, it may bring us inspiration and hope to look back on world history and the history of medicine. With science, hard work, solidarity, cleverness, dedication and perseverance, we have controlled past infectious disease outbreaks. From cholera to polio, rabies to smallpox, black plague to syphilis or HIV and even the latest work in HPV prevention, we have made huge strides in medicine and treatment.

As physicians in charge of the care of our patients, we are also responsible for maintaining and promoting hope to our relatives and the environment.

Stay strong. Stay together. You and your families are in our thoughts, wishes and prayers.

Yours sincerely,

Philippe Morice, France, ESGO President and Antonio Gonzalez-Martin, Spain, ENGOT Chair

 

ESGO Executive Committee & ENGOT Chair-Elect

 

Nicole Concin, Austria, Jonathan Ledermann, UK, Denis Querleu, France,

Renata Brandtnerova, Czech Republic and Mansoor Mirza, Denmark

 

on behalf of

and all the members of the ESGO Council

 

Anna Fagotti, Italy, Christina Fotopoulou, UK, Maja Pakiz, Slovenia, Ico Toth, Hungary, Elzbieta van der Steen-Banasik, Netherlands, Luis Chiva, Spain, Pawel Knapp, Poland, Mansoor Raza Mirza, Denmark, Jan Persson, Sweden, Andrei Pletnev, Belarus, Jalid Sehouli, Germany, Artem Stepanyan, Armenia, Cagatay Taskiran, Turkey and Ignacio Zapardiel, Spain.