Welcome

Dear Colleagues, It is a great pleasure to invite you to the ECTS 2019, the 46th annual meeting of the European Calcified Tissue Society. ECTS 2019 will take place from 11-14 May 2019 in Budapest, Hungary, with pre-congress day on 10 May 2019.

ECTS serves as a forum for researchers and clinicians working in the musculoskeletal field to discover and discuss the latest advances and controversies in research and in the daily care of patients. A special highlight this year will be the 50th year anniversary of bisphosphonates. Everyone in the field knows their history and impact on clinical medicine, but what will be their future? A forward looking session will review future developments.

Also new this year, the meeting will include relevant hot clinical sessions and interactive “how do I” to help managing patients going along the newest knowledge in the field.

The educational aspects of ECTS 2019 will include pre-meeting courses, working group meetings and workshops. There will be many interactive sessions: Meet-the-Experts, ECTS-ASBMR clinical debate and the Opening Ceremony will review ECTS Practice Guidelines issued during the past year. As in previous years, ECTS 2019 will include a New Investigator programme fully organised by our young leaders, the ECTS Academy.

This programme will give the opportunity to new investigators to network, share common interests, receiving mentoring advices and start building their own collaborative projects at an international level. Collaboration will also be highlighted in several joint sessions with international bone societies: ASBMR and our partners from China, Japan and Korea.

ECTS Congress is recognised a successful scientific meeting thanks to the large number of contributions coming via abstract submissions. We are committed to offer large visibility to promising abstracts by including them in plenary oral sessions, poster orals, SNAPS or via dedicated poster viewing sessions. We therefore, strongly encourage you to take note of the abstract submission deadline and to send your abstracts in due time.

Whether you are a young investigator, clinician, basic scientist, nurse or allied health professional, industry representative, you will be exposed to the latest topics in our field. Take part in this exciting meeting and stay tuned for more information coming soon. We look forward to welcoming you in Budapest.

Anna Teti, SPC Chair.