Committed to lifelong learning and continued improvement in patient care.
A European update on lung diseases and treatment was hosted in Warsaw in January 2023. The summit focused mostly on Lung Cancer and included surgeons and other specialists from almost every European country. It is highly important for a small country like to Malta to keep active on the international stage and update ourselves on what our neighbours are dealing with and how they are advancing their treatment of lung cancer and other respiratory diseases. Since the delegates where by invitation only it is an honour to represent Malta at this summit.
Lung Health Summit 2023
Copenhagen VATS Lobectomy Immersion
This 3 day visit to Copenhagen was focused entirely on lung cancer surgery with the famous anterior VATS approach pioneered in Copenhagen.
In my training in St Bartholomew's London this was the technique we used and this is the approach I am still using today for all my "keyhole" lung operations.
What a pleasure and an honour it was to meet two of the masters of lung surgery in their natural environment; Dr Hansen & Prof. Petersen. Spending time with them in the operating theatre, watching them perform their world renowned craft as well as their pre-operative and post-operative care, was highly educational and helps us continue improve our lung cancer treatment in Malta.
VATS Sympathectomy Service Launch
After many months of work to set up this service we have finally launched it with our first operation in Malta under the expert guidance of Mr Georgios Sotiropoulos who has flown to us from Athens to supervise the first operation.
This operation is quickly performed on both sides of the chest sequentially by a VATS 2 port approach. The key to success here is knowing exactly where to cut the sympathetic nerve. A massive thank you to Mr Sotiropoulos for training me and helping us prepare all the equipment needed for this service to now operate in Malta.
Lung Cancer Treatment: Cyprus-Malta Joined Update
This focused conference included expert speakers from Geneva & Lausanne to lead the discussion amongst Cypriot and Maltese lung cancer specialists.
It has proved very insightful to discuss the benefits of Pembrolizumab immunotherapy together with chemotherapy before and after surgery to improve our long term survival rates in lung cancer.
Special thanks to MSD for organising an excellent meeting.
ESMO - Annual European Oncology Congress. September 2024. Barcelona, Spain.
With over 36,000 delegates this was one of the largest cancer conferences in the world. All types of cancer where being discussed here however i specifically sought out and attended talks on Lung Cancer, Thymic Cancer and Mesothelioma.
The updates on Thymic cancer were very important with new classification and staging systems. MARS-2 trial updates in the mesothelioma talks were very interesting and as usual the discussion of Neo-Adjuvant immunotherapy in resectable lung cancer is developing further to allow us to aim for a cure in more and more lung cancer patients.
EACTS Annual CardioThoracic Congress. October 2024, Lisbon, Portugal.
This Congress gathered heart and lung surgeons from all across the globe to discuss the most up to date treatments for heart disease and lung cancer. Especially interesting were discussions on novel techniques for COPD treatment.
