Webinar on Clinical Medicine | New Horizons in Treating Liver Diseases in the COVID Era

On Friday, July 22 2022, MDPI and the journal JCM held their ninth webinar in the Clinical Medicine Series. An introduction was held by the chair, Prof. Dr. Pierluigi Toniutto, of the University of Udine, Italy. His research interests include the management of patients with severe liver diseases, and of liver transplanted patients.

The first speaker of the session was Dr. Ioannis Konstantinidis, of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, El Paso, Texas, USA. His presentation focused on the Advances in the treatment of metastatic liver malignancies. His clinical and research focus are pancreas and hepatobiliary cancer, stomach cancer, HIPEC, robotic surgery and patient frailty.

The next speaker was Dr. Yuman Fong, of the City of Hope Medical Center, Duarte, California, USA. His presentation was titled "Minimally Invasive Liver Surgery". Dr. Fong is best known for his extensive work in the field of liver and pancreatic surgery. He helped usher in robotic techniques for HPB surgery. He is editor of the SAGES Atlas of Robotic Surgery. For his clinical work, he was awarded the Layton F. Rikkers Master Clinician Award from the SSAT. He has assisted in the design and deployment of many novel surgical tools.

Our third speaker was Dr. Maria Guarino, of the University of Naples “Federico II”, Naples, Italy. She is a Gastroenterologist with special interests in liver diseases. She is teaching assistant at the School of Medicine, University of Naples “Federico II”. Since December 2018 she has been an Attending Physician, at the Gastroenterology and Hepatology Unit of the University Hospital “Federico II” of Naples. Her presentation was titled "Incidence and Clinical Impact of COVID-19 in Liver Transplant Recipients".

Our fourth and final speaker for the webinar was Prof. Dr. Patrizia Burra from the University Hospital of Padua, Padova, Italy. She is clinically and scientifically interested in studies in the field of liver transplantation, mainly with regard to HBV prophylaxis after transplantation, liver transplantation for NAFLD and NASH including evaluation of frailty and obesity, early liver transplantation for acute alcoholic hepatitis. In addition, she is involved in the clinical management of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, primary sclerosing cholangitis, and cholangiocarcinoma. Currently she is Chair of the Public Affairs Committee 2022–2025 at United European Gastroenterology (UEG) and General Secretary of the Italian Society of Gastroenterology (SIGE). The topic of her presentation was on the impact of COVID-19 in the liver transplant programs and in organ procurement systems.

Each presentation was followed by a discussion moderated by the chair. The webinar was offered via Zoom and required registration to attend. The full recording can be found here on Sciforum website. In order to stay updated on the next webinars on JCM, be sure to sign up for our newsletter by clicking on “Subscribe” at the top of the page.