Welcome
Dear Colleagues,
It is with great pleasure that we announce an “International Congress on Cartilage Repair of the Ankle,” which will be held in Dublin, Ireland on March 9-10, 2012.
Organized by the AFAS (Ankle & Foot Association) section of ESSKA in collaboration with Hospital for Special Surgery, this meeting has been established on the basis of requests from leaders in the field to consolidate and share information, which can collectively serve as a basis for international collaboration and innovation.
The field of cartilage repair surgery is not devoid of controversy, and the ankle joint is no exception to this. In fact, injuries to the ankle joint are among the most common injuries in sport worldwide, with some form of cartilage injury occurring in as many as half of all acute ankle sprains and fractures. Despite this, however, the most optimal treatment strategies are frequently debated among orthopaedic surgeons.
It is our hope that this meeting will be both educational and productive, with current concepts discussed and debated by internationally renowned faculty and special guest speakers. More importantly, this meeting represents a willingness to work together to optimize treatment strategies and ultimately progress towards an evidence-based consensus to improve patient outcomes in cartilage repair surgery of the ankle.
Evidence-based medicine can be defined as the assimilation of clinical expertise, patient values, and the best research evidence into the decision making process for patient care (Sackett, 2002). Above all, an evidence-based approach to the treatment of cartilage injuries of the ankle will require a commonality in scientific language and homogenous reporting of outcome data that are conducive to systematic comparison among investigators. It is this process that will eventually allow the most optimal treatment guidelines to be described.
Through lectures, case discussion and audience interaction, we promise to provide you with the most up-to-date concepts and treatment guidelines for everyday practice of cartilage injuries to the ankle joint.
We look forward to welcoming you to Dublin in 2012.
Best wishes,
| John G. Kennedy | C. Niek van Dijk | Richard D. Ferkel |
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| ISAKOS approved Course |
