31 March 2016
Dear ISUP member,
This newsletter describes our targets for ISUP this year. Attached to the email are the minutes of the AGM of Seattle and also the new Code of Conduct of the Society.
First a few words about the ISUP activities at USCAP in Seattle 12-18 March.
- ISUP member reception
This year’s member reception was generously sponsored by Aquesta Uropathology, Australia courtesy of the Society’s Secretary, Prof. Hema Samaratunga. The reception was very well-attended. As usual it became a very nice social event with opportunities for old and new members to get to know each other.
- ISUP companion meeting
Prior to the companion meeting this year’s ISUP Awards were presented. The Koss medal went to Dr David Grignon and the Grawitz medal to Dr Isabell Sesterhenn. The ISUP companion meeting, chaired by Jesse McKenney and Steven Shen, was very appreciated. An overview of the new WHO Classification was given by the four editors of the book: Holger Moch (kidney), Peter Humphrey (prostate), Tom Ulbright (testis) and Victor Reuter (bladder).
- ISUP interactive conference for standardization of urological pathology
ISUP has hosted quite a number of consensus meetings over the past years, on the average approximately every second year. Since we held a prostate expert consultation in late 2014 and then a testis and penile tumor consultation at USCAP 2015, we did not intend to organize a major consensus meeting this year. However, we felt that it would still be nice to offer some form of educational activity for the members. This year’s meeting had an entirely novel format. The intention was to present results of the ISUP image reference library (Imagebase) and then train grading and diagnosis with electronic voting. Speakers were John Srigley, Cristina Magi-Galluzzi, Jesse McKenney, Brett Delahunt, Ming Zhou and myself. We covered grading of prostate, bladder and kidney cancer and also classification of renal tumors. Despite some initial unfortunate technical problems with the projection the meeting gave a useful update of grading and classification criteria and a range of features of each grade or tumor type were presented. The meeting was unusually well-attended with 170 registered delegates.
- Grawitz dinner
This year’s Grawitz dinner was organized by Larry True and his team at the French restaurant, LouLay’s. The event was attended by more than 80 hungry uropathologists with accompanying persons and will go down to ISUP history as one of the nicest and most gastronomic Grawitz dinners. A huge thank you to the organizers!
Plans for 2016-2017
- Continued work on the new ISUP website
One of our achievements the past year has been the development of ISUP’s new website: www.isupweb.org. The websites of the Society have since they were launched in early December 2015 had more than 2000 unique visitors and more than 70 000 page views with a sustained daily activity. We intend to fine-tune and further develop the functions of the website this year. This will be done together with our webmaster, Anil Parwani (Anil.Parwani@osumc.edu).
You can already now edit your own profile, which includes changed address and setting a new password. If you have forgotten your login you can always use the email address that has been registered as your primary email address in the member directory. You can then re-set the password and choose something that is easy to remember. You can now also see when your member dues are scheduled to be paid. Login to the website and click Edit profile.
This is an example of how the dues infomration will appear:
PROFILE
Edit My Information
Change Password
Membership fee paid until: 01 Apr 2017
One month before the dues expire, the payment button will reappear and you will be able to pay online.
The member directory will also be improved with search functions.
The registration of new members and the payment of member dues have been greatly improved but we still need to work on the payment function as we have received reports that some have had difficulties with the payment. Do not hesitate to contact the Treasurer if you are in trouble. We intend to email all new members who have registered but not paid and enquire what the exact reason is for not paying, i.e. if it was because of technical problems or for other reasons. Any more specific information such as screenshots of error messages are more than welcome!
The Case of the Month has been up and running 5 months now. This function will be further developed during 2016. Andrew Evans has been appointed Editor of the cases. He will have a team of 7 reviewers who will read and approve the contributions: Mahul Amin, Cristina Magi-Galluzzi, James Kench, Murali Varma, John Cheville, C-C Pan and Jesse McKenney. Cases will be provided by a panel of 25 members but other ISUP members are welcome to submit cases to andrew.evans@uhn.on.ca according to the format that can be seen on the ISUP website (Case history, list of diagnoses for a quiz, microscopic description with discussion about differential diagnosis and a set of jpg images). We will set up a function that allows the member to see the distribution of previous replies to the quiz. An interesting project that will be run by Andrew Evans and Anil Parwani is to set up digital slides as an option for The Case of the Month. They both have an interest in digital pathology and are currently investigating technical solutions. We will however also publish the cases as jpg images for those who prefer still life.
- Pathology Imagebase
This function is easily reached through www.isupweb.org. Use your ISUP member login which will give you full access to Imagebase. We have currently set up 5 projects: grading of prostate, bladder and renal cancer, diagnosis of flat urothelial lesions and classification of renal tumors. A total of 754 cases have been uploaded and 289 consensus cases have accumulated.
There is an interest in doing projects on staging of prostate and bladder cancer. We have discussed the option of using digital pathology for these purposes. However, for the moment the panel members are quite exhausted after the extensive projects that needed to be finished before USCAP so think it will be appropriate to let them have a break before starting something new.
We will also soon launch an open, free version of Imagebase that does not require ISUP membership. A very limited number of cases will be selected for this version with the purpose to showcase our work and also to give basic access to low resource countries. The free version will use the same web address as the ISUP member version but if you are not logged in as a member, only a few cases can be accessed and the statistics field will not be shown.
- Consensus Conference on Bladder Pathology
A recent survey among ISUP members showed that the most popular area for next consensus meeting was bladder pathology. We have therefore decided to set up a meeting on that topic at USCAP in San Antonio. An organizing committee has been appointed and working groups will soon be set up. We will keep you updated as soon as the plans get more detailed.
- International Collaboration on Cancer Reporting (ICCR)
This project aims to issue recommendations for minimum level of reporting of urological pathology. Minimum datasets have been prepared for 12 specimen types in GU pathology: prostate (core biopsies, TURP, RP), urothelial tract (biopsy/TUR, cystectomy, urethrectomy, upper tract), kidney (nephrectomy, core biopsy), testis (orchidectomy, RPLND) and penis. They are now undergoing internal review at ICCR. Once they are approved they will go out to the ISUP membership for comments before final publication. The recommendations are mainly based on guidelines from USA, Canada, UK and Australia. The documents aim to define a minimum level of reporting that can be accepted in different legislations.
- By-laws committee
Last time the Constitution and By-laws of ISUP were revised was as recently as in 2010 but we feel that it may be time to do another revision. A constitution and by-laws committee under the lead of Cristina Magi-Galluzzi was appointed during 2015 and has started its work. We expect a report to be delivered to the 2017 USCAP meeting.
- International Standardization of Urological Pathology
This project aims to set up educational activities, particularly in countries that have more recently moved into medium income category. We want to give global access to high-level international teaching and will evaluate its effects. We will also include a number of industrialized countries for the comparison. A series of courses will be given by ISUP Officers and a web-based educational system set up. So far activities in 9 countries have been scheduled.
- ESP/IAP meeting in Cologne
The major international meeting this year (apart from USCAP) is a combined ESP/IAP meeting in Cologne, Germany. Hosting both meetings at the same time will generate a very comprehensive and interesting program. The GU program has been put together by the local representative, prof Glen Kristiansen, Bonn, together with Antonio Lopez-Beltran from the ESP workgroup. The GU program looks very exciting with a strong ISUP presence and several high-profile speakers. Can be recommended! It is easy to travel to Cologne. You can for example fly to Frankfurt which is a major hub and then take the train.
- Code of Conduct
Dr. John Srigley has written a Code of Conduct for the Society that has been approved by the Council. It contains recommendations for the conduct of members against each other and against the Society and its officers. It is important that criticism can be raised in a Scociety and problems discussed. However, tehre is a limit beyond which the actions of a member may obstruct the work of the Society and cause considerable harm. Such behavior must be regulated and the Council must have means to take action.
Lars Egevad
President of ISUP