This year, the Ambercell Solutions team spent several days at ECIO, one of Europe’s most important interventional oncology events, bringing together doctors, scientists, and industry representatives to share the latest clinical experience and innovations in minimally invasive cancer treatment.
It is gratifying to see how actively doctors from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are actively involved in the ECIO Congress – they not only participate, but also actively participate in practical sessions, case discussions and workshops.
It was also good to meet our partners – Igea, Cascination, Varian (Siemens Healthineers) and Terumo – in the exhibition space and to see how much discussion and interest was taking place at their stands.
Conversations with doctors kept coming back to similar topics. Ablation continues to expand according to indications, but there is less and less discussion about the choice of methods. More emphasis is placed on planning, navigation and validation of results in practice. The integration of navigation and imaging is increasingly mentioned in clinical discussions, especially in complex cases, where the consistency of procedures becomes the most important challenge.
The increasing involvement of multidisciplinary teams – oncologists and surgeons – is also becoming apparent. More and more cases are being solved together, combining different treatment methods.
One of the sessions that stood out was a lecture on re-TACE (Re-TACE) presented by Terumas. It discussed the challenges associated with repeated chemoembolization – vascular changes, collateral formation, and the risk of ischemic damage to healthy liver tissue. The question was also raised as to when TACE becomes less effective and how the treatment strategy should change in this case.
Training and proctorship also stood out as a constant need, important for the development of structured interventional oncology programs in hospitals.
It is gratifying to see such a level of involvement of the Baltic centres and how the discussions are evolving in practice.
