ENDO-Dubai 2020 was held at Intercontinental, Festival City, Dubai, United Arab Emirates on February 27-29, 2020. Under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, Minister of Finance, President of the Dubai Health Authority, ENDO-Dubai 2020 is a leading scientific event in the field of minimally-invasive gynecologic surgery led by key members of European Society for Gynaecological Endoscopy (ESGE) and American Association of Gynecologic Laparoscopists (AAGL).The general motto of the Congress is: TRUTH and LIES. Around 1,000 gynecologists from Europe, the United States and Middle East were at this gala.

HIFU Symposium at ENDO-Dubai 2020 was the second acadmic conference on HIFU ablation technology and therapy held by ESGE Working Group on “Non-surgical ablative therapy of benign uterine disease (WG)”, which was established in October, 2019 at the ESGE annual gala meeting in Greece.The WG convened the first HIFU Symposium in German-speaking OB-GYN Congress-MAA in Vienna, Austria in December, 2020. At ENDO-Dubai 2020, the 90-min HIFU Symposium convened on the morning of February 28, 2020. In the chair were Prof. Rudy Leon De Wilde, Chief Medical Officer of the Pius-Hospital, Medical Campus University Oldenburg, Vice Chair of WG, and Dr. Rajesh Devassy, one of UAE’s best known Gynaecologists in Dubai London Clinic and Speciality Hospital, Member of WG. Three speakers were: Prof. Hugo C. Verhoeven, Medical Director at the Private Center for Reproductive Medicine, Endocrinology, Genetics and Anti-Aging Medicine in Dusseldorf, Germany, Chair of WG; Prof. Antoni Pessarrodona Isern, Director of OB-GYN Department and Director of HIFU Center, University Hospital Mutua de Terrassa (HMT), Barcelona, Spain, Member of WG; and Prof. Rosie Xing, Chongqing Medical University, China, Guestmember of WG.

Prior to this HIFU Symposium, the HIFU technology is barely known by the medical professionals in the Middel East Region. In his opening remarks, Prof. Rudy Leon De Wilde, the propeller and one of the most influential international opinion leaders of the minimally-invasive surgeries (MIS) in OB-GYN said: “So there is a shift in the vision. If you look at what we did in surgery the last years, it is also changing. If you go back 30 or 40 years, the bigger the incision, the better the surgery. Since then,while open surgery is still performed, it has become less and less invasive. Then we have developed laparoscopic surgery which is even less invasive. The question is: how will surgery evolve if we continue with this vision? If a lady has a fibroid, we treated it with a big open surgery, then went to a small open surgery, later to to laparoscopic surgery and hysteroscopic surgery; what is the next? And to find a solution and to find an answer to this question, we set up this Symposium. This HIFU Symposium will help us find a way to reach this vision, namely treating the disease, with minimal invasiveness which may achieve the maximal effectiveness”.

To start with, Prof. Rosie Xing gave an introduction to the working principle of focused ultrasound ablative technology and therapy, the safety and effectiveness profile of HIFU for various benign uterine diseases as well as the status of global adoption of HIFU in gynecology and obstetrics. Prof. Hugo C. Verhoeven talked about the difficulties of treating adenomyosis facing OB-GYNs and his several visits to Chongqing, his knowledge and learning of Haifu Medical’s world-leading USgHIFU for benign uterine diseases, saying that focusend ultrasound ablative therapy would be a new option for adenomyosis with superiority over the other existing surgical technologies. Prof. Antoni Pessarrodona Isern shared the experience of HMT HIFU Center in Spain the pregnancy outcomes in patients with uterine fibroids treated with ultrasound-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound.

At the end of the three lectures, Prof. Rudy Leon De Wilde chaired an engaging Q&A and discussion on HIFU that lasted 30 minutes. Attendess were all amazed to know the achievements USgHIFU has made in gynecology and expressed their hopes for cooperation.

At last, Prof. Rudy Leon De Wilde concluded that “a major consideration which technology to choose to treat our patients is whether the technology can relieve the pain they are suffering when they first come to us while causing a minimal damage to their body and psychology!”

Echoing with the motto of ENDO-Dubai 2020, TRUTH and LIES, this HIFU Symposium was an extraordinary scientific meeting, truth-seeking, inclusive and warm.

Next, March 27, 2020 will witness another HIFU Symposium to be held by the ESGE Working Group at the ICAGE 18th edition in Dubai. Themed on Fibroids and Adenomyosis, the18th edition of the International Consensus Meeting on Advanced Gynecological Minimal-Access Surgery (ICAGE) will gather key opinion leaders (KOLs) in Middle East and form a consensus on the introduction of HIFU for benign uterine diseases into this region on its 10th Anniversary.

The vision of Treatment: Minimize harm to patients will continue to lead the further development and application of focused ultrasound ablative technology in gynecology to more doctors, more patients and more indications.

For more information, please visit:

http://www.haifumedical.com/

https://endo-dubai.ae/

https://esge.org/

http://www.drrajeshdevassy.com/icage/