US, Asian experts to attend St. Luke's liver gab

All roads lead to Manila next year when the world’s leading experts in liver diseases converge for the 2nd St. Luke’s International Liver Conference in EDSA Shangri-La Hotel on Jan. 19 to 20, 2009.

The event will be hosted by the Center for Liver Diseases of St. Luke’s Medical Center, in cooperation with the Philippine Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, the Philippine Foundation for Liver Diseases, St. Luke’s Institute of Digestive and Liver Diseases, and St. Luke’s College of Medicine-William H. Quasha Memorial.

The world’s liver authorities will discuss an interesting array of subjects ranging from the ever-changing profile of liver diseases to the management of new treatment modalities.

Dr. Edgardo Cortez, St. Luke’s VP for medical affairs and medical director, said, “This biennial event is a most anticipated gathering of world renowned experts who will tackle liver conditions, both medical and surgical, and benign and malignant; and current and future treatment strategies to enable clinicians to cope with the ever-changing profile of liver diseases.”

Topics include the following: Diagnostic Pitfalls in Liver Biopsy Interpretation, Perspective on the Current Management Strategies of NASH, Handling Persistent Transaminitis in NASH on Standard Therapy, Current Management Strategies in CHB, Managing Primary Non-response/Relapse to Antivirals in CHB, and, Delaying and Dealing with Antiviral Resistance in CHB, among others.

Drs. Randy Mercado and Juliet Gopez-Cervantes are the chairman and co-chairman, respectively, of the event.

The panel of speakers include Dr. Yuman Fong of New York’s Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; Dr. Robert Gish of California (USA) Pacific Medical Center; Dr. Patrick Kamath of the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine; Dr. Ching Lung Lai of the University of Hong Kong; Dr. Willis Maddrey of the Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas; Teerha Piratvisuth of the Prince of Songkla University in Thailand; Dr. Ray Kim of Mayo Clinic Transplant Center; and, Dr. Matthew Yeh of the University of Washington.

Interested individuals or parties may contact the St. Luke’s Customer Affairs Division at 723-0101 extension 4220 or 4221 or e-mail at [email protected].ph for reservation or more information. They may also log on to http://www.ics.stluke.com.ph/liver/.