Mr. President,
Dear Colleagues of the 135th Congress of the German Society of Surgery,
As a representative of the Spanish Society of Surgical Oncology (SEOQ), it is an honor for me to have been invited by the German Society of Surgery to participate in its prestigious National Congress here in Berlin.
SEOQ was founded in 1981 by a group of enthusiastic surgeons dedicated to cancer surgery. In turn, it is immersed in the Federation of Spanish Oncological Societies (FESEO) sharing among other things, the Journal of Clinical and Translational Oncology (CTO).
Since its incorporation in the European Society of Surgical Oncology (ESSO) in 2006 our Society has been modernized and our members are enjoying all advantages offered by ESSO.
The aim of SEOQ is to be the framework for the understanding of all those surgical specialties that treat cancer, especially those procedures that due to their complexity must be addressed from a multidisciplinary perspective.
In this sense, the Society hosted the Spanish Group of Peritoneal Oncologic Surgery (GECOP) 10 years ago, paradigm of multimodal treatment among others. This cooperative group is fully integrated in the Peritoneal Surface Oncology Group International (PSOGI) actively participating in many initiatives and clinical trials, and thus helping in the advancement of knowledge of an entity as complex as peritoneal carcinomatosis.
The relevant role of the German School of Medicine over the years is well known, and therefore it is for me a privilege to attend to the annual meeting of one of the oldest medical scientific societies in the world.
I trust that this is the beginning of a close relationship between our scientific societies and that we can share common interests in the future.
Thank you very much and I wish you a successful congress.
Dr. Pedro Bretcha-Boix, MD, PhD, EBSO
President of the Spanish Society of Oncologic Surgery
