INTERNATIONAL NEUROANESTHESIA NEWS

5th Biennial Congress of the Asian Society for Neuroanesthesia and Critical Care (ASNACC 2017)

Chong Chin Ted, MBBS, MMed, FANZCA¹; Girija Prasad Rath, MBBS, MD, DM^2
1Department of Anaesthesiology, Intensive Care and Pain Medicine,Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH), National Healthcare Group, Singapore
²Department of Neuroanaesthesiology and Critical Care, Neurosciences Centre, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, India

Fig 1. 5th Congress of Asian Society for Neuroanesthesia and Critical Care (ASNACC) in conjunction with 20th General Scientific Meeting of Singapore Society of Anesthesiologists (SSA)

The 5th Congress of the Asian Society for Neuroanesthesia and Critical Care (ASNACC) was held in Singapore, in conjunction with the 20th Annual General Scientific Meeting (GSM) of the Singapore Society of Anesthesiologists (SSA) during August 17-19, 2017 at the Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel located adjacent to the historic Singapore River.

The biennial ASNACC Congress has been a leading conference on neuroanesthesia and neurocritical care in Asia, providing a common platform for neuroanesthesiologists across diverse Asian countries to collaborate on improving care for neurologically injured patients. The Congress has been previously hosted in Beijing, China (2009), New Delhi, India (2011), Bali, Indonesia (2013) and Busan, South Korea (2015). This year, the 5th Congress edition took place in Singapore and featured eminent speakers mainly from Asia, as well as distinguished speakers from the United States of America. The Asian faculty included speakers from South Korea (Hae-kyu Kim, Jae-young Kwon, Hee-Pyoung Park); Indonesia (Tatang Bisri, Sri Rahardjo, and Putu Pramana); India (Harihara Dash, Dilip Kumar Kulkarni, and Girija Prasad Rath); China (Han Ruquan), Hong Kong (Matthew TV Chan); Japan (Kenji Yoshitani, Mishiya Matsumoto); Malaysia (Vanithan Sivanaser); Thailand (Phuping Akavipat); Philippines (Geraldine Jose); and Singapore (Thomas Lew, Kwek Tong Kiat, See Jee Jian, Mandy Lim, Beatrice Lim, Chong Shang Yee, Chong Chin Ted, Jensen Ng, Aaron Lee, Chen Xinying, Ng Wai Hoe). Professor Adrian Gelb and Professor Andrew Kofke (USA) completed the list of the speaking faculty. Building on the apt theme, “A Meeting of Minds,” highlights of the scientific program included two plenary lectures entitled, Overturning Doctrines - Revisiting the Pressure Autoregulation Curve and Monroe-Kellie Doctrine and Myths in Anesthetic Depth Monitoring, as well as sessions focusing on areas such as Neurocritical Care – Controversies and Consensus, Awake Craniotomy and Neuroanesthesia - Improving Outcomes on day one; and Hemorrhagic Stroke, Pituitary and Neurovascular and Expert Panel Discussion on day two. The pre-congress Multi-modality Intra-operative Neuromonitoring Workshop was attended by 36 local and overseas participants at Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Singapore. They were updated with both basic and current information on different neuromonitoring modalities such as Transcranial Doppler (TCD) ultrasonography, evoked potentials, multi-channel bispectral index (BIS) monitoring and cerebral oximetry based on near infra-red spectroscopy (NIRS) during the workshop.

Fig 2. 5th Congress of ASNACC organizing committee, invited speakers
and ASNACC executive committee at Closing Ceremony

A total of 378 delegates from 15 countries (Singapore - 155, Indonesia - 62, South Korea - 41, Philippines - 31, India - 27, Malaysia - 14, Japan - 11, Thailand - 11, Australia - 8, USA - 5, Myanmar - 5, China - 2, Hong Kong - 3, Taiwan - 1, and Italy - 2) participated in this Congress. The Congress received 79 scientific abstracts for poster presentations. Prizes were awarded to Dr. Mohamad Hasyizan Hassan (Malaysia) and Dr. Young-kwon Ko (South Korea) for their scientific presentations.

The Executive Board meeting of ASNACC was convened during the congress led by President Professor Tatang Bisri (Indonesia) who summarized the research, educational and financial status of the society. Potential areas of international collaboration with SNACC were also discussed. It was also decided to further improve online presence (website and social media) of ASNACC apart from engagement with other Asian countries formal induction into the umbrella of ASNACC. Professor Kwon Jae-young (South Korea) was elected as President by a consensus resolution. The Executive Committee decided that the venue for the next ASNACC Congress (2019) would be Nara, Japan.

The 5th Congress of ASNACC in Singapore was brought to a successful close with a preview of the 6th Congress that will be organized under the auspices of the Japanese Society of Neuroscience in Anesthesiology and Critical Care. In addition, there were thanks given to all the invited speakers for their valuable contributions and to the delegates for their active participation.