Previous Events
18th Annual Scientific Meeting, Gold Coast QLD, 5-7 March 2009.
In an era of tumour site and craft group specialised education, the Australasian Brachytherapy Group 2009 meeting this March continues to champion our multidisciplinary approach. The strong overseas faculty is boosted by local speakers with pathology, radiology, urology and gynaecological oncology backgrounds. This year’s meeting has a stronger clinical focus than in previous years, with the introduction of panel discussions as part of the Saturday prostate day and a revamped line-up for the Thursday, with three interactive workshops.
The meeting is being held back-to back with the Urological Society of Australia’s annual scientific meeting, and our local faculty is led by A/Prof Phillip Stricker, who has done so much to promote prostate brachytherapy in Sydney and more widely in Australia, and who will be the keynote speaker at our Gold Sponsor - Oncura Session on Saturday morning. A/Prof Stricker will speak on the topic – Seeds in Australia – Past, Present and Future.
Our overseas speakers will be very involved in the Thursday workshops – and these sessions, by their nature less formal and more interactive, promise to be an educational highlight.
Peter Douglas and Kirstin Bell from Nucletron – our meeting’s number one ‘D’ Diamond sponsor, are excited to be showcasing the Inverse Planning Software Algorithm developed for HDR planning - with the Thursday morning workshop led by Dr Joe Hsu and Dr Greg Edmundson. Using Oncentra planning workstations a number of different tumour sites will be showcased – including GYN and prostate. It is not so well known that IPSA was originally developed for LDR prostate – as used in the spotPRO planning system for three years now at Premion Wesley, with members of their Brachy Team also involved in the workshop.
After lunch on Thursday, are two new workshops hoping to develop a new level of collaboration and cooperation at ABG, as we talk about forming a National Seed Database and How to Improve Access for Prostate Brachytherapy. We are privileged to welcome a representative of the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia, Mr Bill McHugh, to provide a consumer focus to our deliberations. Our overseas speakers will contrast trends in UK and Canada with our own health system. Our bronze meeting sponsor Hans Feitz from GMS has been a keen supporter as we look to developing the potential of a great home-grown Aussie product BrachyNet – created by ABG faculty member Ryan Smith.
A new Imaging session has been created on the Friday morning – with the world leading MRI and MR spectroscopy experience of UCSF presented by Dr Joe Hsu. Dr Juanita Crook, head of the Prostate Brachytherapy program at Princess Margaret Hospital, Toronto, tells us about CT and MRI post-implant dosimetry.
A highlight of the physics session on Friday afternoon will be Dr Greg Edmundson speaking about a new dosimetry algorithm for Iridium-192. Dr Edmundson also speaks to us about Accelerated Partial Breast Irradiation and Mammosite on the Friday morning, for which he did a lot of the physics development work for this exciting modality. Our Saturday Prostate day kicks off with an update of RTOG Trial 0321 and the UCSF experience of HDR prostate brachytherapy, as well as information about Salvage HDR, from Dr Joe Hsu. This hot new topic is another first for ABG 2009. A presentation highlight will be the Peter MacCallum HDR monotherapy experience.
After morning tea, for the rest of Saturday its seeds, seeds and more seeds! It’s raining LDR seeds at the Marriott Gold Coast as we leave no aspect of this subject untouched – led by leading Australian urologists and our overseas guest faculty. A highlight promises to be the extended panel discussions as we tackle such controversies as ‘Seeds in the Younger Man’, ‘Seeds in Intermediate Risk Cases – Where to Draw the Line’ and ‘LDR seed Dosimetry – How Hot is enough.’
To unwind, join us on Saturday evening as we watch a spectacular dolphin show before being serenaded during our conference dinner – and watch out for a special surprise appearance from a famous Gold Coast celebrity..... We also thank our three Silver sponsors, Abbott, AstraZeneca, and Hospira and our Bronze plus sponsor Varian for the wonderful educational experience of ABG 2009 as we dance the rest of the night away.
If you haven’t yet registered – show this article to your boss at work and demand a ringside seat at ABG 2009 – cancel the Brachy lists 5-7 March and get a whole bunch of your colleagues to come along as well – that’s what my enlightened boss at Premion has done – and yours should do the same.
See ya soon [only one more full moon!]
James MacKean
Convenor