Newsletter, January 2014

President’s message

It is difficult to believe that it is almost 18 months since our Paris World Congress took place and that our 11th World Congress in Seoul will soon be upon us. My first message is clear. Plan to come to Seoul and register before the online registration is scheduled to close on 24th January 2014. Congress registration to date has been very strong and SG Lee and his colleagues have packed the programme, complementing the traditional sessions of original presentations, debates and symposia, with live operating and an extensive postgraduate programme.

I could not have imagined the challenges that I would face on assuming the presidency in 2013 but your executive has achieved much. Our main objectives have been to professionalize and strengthen our organization, improve communication and educational opportunities while at the same time ensuring value for membership subscription.

Your executive has not been idle and we have been well supported by Camilla and Alison of ACS Global who have put our administration on to a much sounder base than in the past. Our committees have been urged to be more active and a council strategy meeting will be held immediately before the next World Congress to deliver a strong business plan and future vision for the Association. We have had a very encouraging response from the membership survey that was launched in December and which will inform our strategy. I urge those members who have not yet completed the survey to do so now, to ensure that we incorporate the membership views on our future direction.

Our Journal goes from strength to strength and has established itself as the specialist journal for our membership. Manuscript submission remains high and acceptance rates have inevitably fallen further. However, our new publisher’s contract with Wiley Blackwell has allowed for an increase in page numbers per issue which will provide the editorial team greater scope for including key submissions. I trust that you have had the opportunity to engage with our new look website (www.ihpba.org) and the educational platform, myHPB, which has the potential to deliver an ongoing legacy from our biennial Congresses but also provides an interactive forum for the membership year round. We have now also attracted our first Corporate Partner, Takeda and would envisage that closer working links with industry will be of mutual benefit. I remain excited about the ways that this will allow us to more easily achieve our aims and objectives as a global organisation.

It is gratifying that recruitment and retention of members continues to grow and that our membership is at an all time high. That this has been achieved in a non World Congress year is truly remarkable. However, we do need to look beyond simply delivering quality world congresses and a high quality specialist journal. The members of your council and its committees appreciate their responsibilities in working for the membership to deliver a strong specialty network that meets the aspirations of the membership.

I trust that when I hand over the presidency at the World Congress in Seoul on 22-27 March 2014 that the IHPBA will continue on a strong trajectory.

James Garden, President

Secretary-General's report

I am pleased to report that the Association now has more members than ever before. Our current membership is 1686. There were 1660 members in March of this year but non-renewed members were then removed from the active category. The current number of active members represents real growth for the IHPBA.

The reach of the IHPBA is also extending. There has been recent significant interest from Russia and other nearby nations as well as new members from Brazil, Argentina and Mexico. Oscar Imventarza has been active in assisting with the formation of new national chapters in Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru.

Just a reminder that it is now time to renew membership and it is necessary to do this before Jan 24th to enable registration at the Seoul meeting at the reduced rate for members.

You will have by now received an invitation to respond to a members’ survey. A significant number of members have already responded but the council would like feedback from all of the membership. It will inform a strategic planning initiative being undertaken early in the New Year with a formal planning meeting prior to the IHPBA meeting in Seoul.

Finally I would like to thank Alison and Camilla from ACS Global for their expert attention to the affairs of the IHPBA and wish you all the best for 2014.

Robert Padbury, Secretary-General

Kenneth Warren Foundation Report

Kenneth W. Warren, M.D. was born in 1911 and practiced as an HPB surgeon at the Lahey Clinic in Boston from 1945 until 1989. In 2000, the Warren Fellowship was established within the IHPBA following a gift of USD 100,000 from Ken Warren. The Warren Fellowship provides USD 20,000 for salary support for a young IHPBA member to perform 12 months of research in an IHPBA mentor’s laboratory in another country.

Since its inception, 13 Warren Fellows have been appointed. Six fellows have been from the Asian-Pacific region, five from Europe and two from the Americas. Eight of the mentors’ laboratories have been in the United States, four in Europe and one in New Zealand. Four of the first 10 Warren Fellows have received a Ph.D. degree. Seven of these 10 Warren Fellows are academic HPB surgeons with one currently a department chair, another a full Professor and a third an Associate Professor. Seven also are actively engaged in basic science research. The median member of peer-received publications for the first ten Warren Fellows is 45.

Since the Foundation's incorporation in 2006, Ken Warren's children, Tom, Sally and George have continued to support funding the Fellowship. To date, USD 250,000 has been provided to the Warren Fellows, and the Warren Foundation has USD 230,000 in reserves. Major donors include, Ken Warren, Tom Warren, Wiley Blackwell, the AHPBA and the IHBPA. The ANZHPBA, the E-AHPBA, the A-PHPBA as well as multiple IHPBA leaders and members also have donated to this important HPB research effort. Donations may be made via the association’s website www.ihpba.org.

Henry A Pitt, Chair Kenneth Warren Foundation

Warren Fellow Report

I would like to thank the International Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association’s Research Committee for awarding me the 2013-2014 Kenneth Warren Fellowship for my study on High Endothelial venules (HEV) and Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). It is an honor to be the latest in a long line of fellows who have, under the auspices of the fellowship, have been able to conduct high quality research in this field. I am privileged to have the opportunity to train with the esteemed faculty in the Hepatopancreatobiliary (HPB) Service at the Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC). This award has made it possible for me to continue my work investigating the role of HEV as an immunomodulator in HCC, under the mentorship of Dr. Ronald DeMatteo and Dr. William Jarnagin. In my previous research on HEV on head and neck cancers, I have shown that HEV plays a central role in modulation of lymph node metastasis and is a strong prognostic marker. We seek to further delineate the role of HEV in HCC and hypothesize that it plays a central role in recruiting lymphocytes that may immunomodulating anticancer effects.

After completing my General Surgery residency in 2010, I continued my subspecialty training in hepato-pancreato-biliary surgery and liver transplantation at Singapore General Hospital and National Cancer Centre, Singapore. In 2012, I underwent further training in hepatobiliary surgery and liver transplantation under Professor Daniel Cherqui as a clinical fellow at the New York Presbyterian Hospital, USA before embarking on my current clinical fellowship in surgical oncology in MSKCC, New York. I am also a Consultant Surgeon at the Department of Hepatopancreatobiliary and Transplant Surgery, Singapore General Hospital and the Department of Surgical Oncology, National Cancer Centre, Singapore. I look forward to presenting my results at the IHPBA meeting in Brazil, 2015, and contributing to the wealth of HPB knowledge.

Ser Yee Lee, 2013-2014 Warren Fellow

HPB - Journal news

Success in journal publishing can be measured in many ways but whatever metric is used it is safe to say that the performance of HPB continues to improve.

Representing the IHPBA, the AHPBA and the E-AHPBA the journal can make a strong case for being the most influential journal in the field of HPB surgery. The editorial team under the leadership of Editor in Chief, James Garden, has been reorganized such that there are now 3 Editors, Saxon Connor, Mark Callery and myself and two new Associate Editors of Rebecca Minter and Ewen Harrison. Ably supported by the Editorial Board and the support team at Wiley publishing, we have been working to drive up the standards of the journal. The journal relies heavily on expert reviewers and the Editorial team sends their sincere thanks to everyone who has continued to provide support for the journal in critiquing and helping improve the quality of our published material. Through the help of our reviewers and editorial board we have achieved an enviable average time from submission to first decision on a manuscript of only 24 days and we will try to reduce this time further.

HPB was first listed on ISI Thomson journal citation reports in 2010 with an impact factor of 1.285. The impact factor has increased year on year such that the latest impact factor for 2012 was 1.934 and there is a genuine expectation that the journal will exceed an impact factor of 2 when the updated impact factors for 2013 are released in mid 2014.

Quality of a journal is really dependent on the articles submitted and their appeal to other readers. There has been a very significant increase in the number of original manuscripts submitted, with 564 submitted in 2012 compared with just 222 in 2010. These figures partly explain why there has had to be a reduction in the proportion of submitted manuscripts that are accepted for publication. For 2014 we have increased the number of pages for each issue of the journal and this will partly offset the mismatch between supply of material and our ability to publish papers. It is gratifying to see that not only have the number of manuscripts increased but also the quality of the studies they report with a higher proportion of randomized controlled trials and meta-analyses. The Editors have selected articles of particular note each month and provided an overview “highlight” and reports suggest that this has been a popular addition to the journal.

The journal has made greater moves toward electronic publishing along with other titles and this will be the principal means of publishing for the future. The new Wiley platform specifically designed for electronic journals is expected to come on track in 2014 and this is expected to improve the reader experience. A final innovation is the addition of the MyHPB section of the website which provides a learning environment which interfaces between the journal HPB and other educational activities of the IHPBA. If you haven’t already we would encourage you to explore the virtual journal clubs and other material that has been made available on this site.

Thank you once again from all of the Editorial team for supporting your journal as we look forward to further successes in 2014.

Stephen J Wigmore

HPB Virtual issue

The HPB Virtual Issue "Making Progress Against Pancreatic Cancer" is now available online with free access https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1477-2574/homepage/virtual_journal_club.htm#I6

Welcome to new IHBPA Members