Dr Kenneth Tsang, President, HKTS; Dr Thomas Mok, President, ACCP (HK & Macau Chapter)
This year’s Autumn Respiratory Seminar (ARS) has once again proved to be hugely successful with wide attendance of physicians, surgeons, nurses, and other allied health professionals. Attendance by allied health professionals was record-high. The main themes of the seminar were focused on lung cancer, air pollution, asthma, hospital acquired pneumonia, and other common clinical problems including influenza, COPD, and sleep-disordered breathing in children. The lung cancer symposium updated the audience on the current state-of-the-art VATS lung resection and various cytotoxic and biologic therapy for lung cancer. As in the past, the session on interactive case presentation was enjoyable with useful discussion among the panel of expert physicians, paediatricians, and radiologists on some less common respiratory conditions like sarcoidosis in Chinese. An expert from the Environmental Protection Department provided an overview of the current status of air pollution in Hong Kong and opened up important questions regarding the source of pollution and future directions in management. This year, we were honored to have Professor Klaus Rabe, from the Leiden University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, who enlightened us on the evolving new concepts in the management of asthma regarding the use of combined inhaled corticosteroid and long-acting beta-agonist on as-needed basis. Overall, this year’s ARS provided a comprehensive review of the current concepts of major respiratory conditions which should be useful to physicians, trainees, and various other health professionals.
