After the great success of the 1st EBNEO conference held in June 2011 at the Karolinska university hospital in Stockholm, Sweden, the 2nd EBNEO conference carried the same vision “care of newborn infants is based on best available evidence” and the same mission “to facilitate the dissemination of evidence-based neonatal medicine, and to create a platform for communication between leading experts and neonatal staff”. The 2nd EBNEO conference took place in Istanbul Gonen Hotel, Istanbul, Turkey 13-16 March 2013. Originally, this conference was planned to take place in Cairo, Egypt. However, due to the political situation in Egypt at that time, the organizing committee decided to move the conference to Istanbul, Turkey.
The conference had a wide range of topics given by 15 world-renowned speakers who addressed critical and controversial issues that face the practicing neonatologist; professor Hesham Abdel-Hady, Mansoura University, Egypt, was the conference president and professor Abdelrahman Elmashad, Tanta University was the secretary general of the conference. Together with the organizing company, ICC Egypt, we made great efforts to make this conference a success story despite the obstacles we faced. The conference was really an international forum with about 100 attendee from 10 countries from 3 continents.
In the first session professor Barbara Schmidt, University of Pennsylvania, USA, discussed the 5-year follow-up of infants enrolled in the CAP “caffeine for apnea of prematurity” trial and professor John Zupancic, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA, give a talk about economic outcomes of prematurity. In the second session, professor Lena Hellström-Westas, Uppsala University, Sweden, discussed the effects of delayed cord clamping in term and preterm infants and professor Hany Aly, George Washington University, USA, discussed fetal and neonatal programming. In the third session; professor Haresh Kirpalani, University of Pennsylvania, USA, discussed the evidence for transfusion-associated NEC from RCTs and observational studies; Dr. Adel Mohamed, University of Toronto, Canada, discussed his systematic review on transfusion-associated NEC and professor Christoph Bührer, Charité University Medical Center, Berlin, Germany discussed the evidence for prevention and treatment of NEC. In the fourth session professor Vinod Paul from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, India, discussed his experience in developing a cheap surfactant for the third world; professor Mikael Norman, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden, gave a talk about C-section for preterm birth and neonatal morbidity and professor Haresh Kirpalani discussed his RCT on nasal IPPV compared to CPAP.
In the fifth session professor Vinod Bhutani, Stanford University, USA gave a talk about hyperbilirubinemia in the preterm infant; professor Matthew Laughon, University of North Carolina, USA, discussed the question PDA: to treat or not to treat?. In the sixth session, Dr Georg Schmölzer, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, discussed new insights into stabilization of preterm infants at birthlinking physiology with clinical practice and professor Jennifer Zeitlin, Epidemiological Research Unit on Perinatal and Women’s and Children’s Health, INSERM, Paris, France, discussed her experience with the implementation of evidence based neonatology – the EPICE project.In the seventh session professor Lena Hellström-Westas gave her second talk about the prognostic value of aEEG in preterm infants; professor David Edwards Kings College London, UK, discussed brain damage in preterm infants and Dr Courtney Wusthoff, Stanford University School of Medicine, USA, discussed follow up of high-risk infants. The conference also had an excellent poster symposium.
Hesham Abdel-Hady,
Professor of Pediatrics
Mansoura University, Egypt
