Dear Members,

 

I am honored and grateful for the trust of members, and the opportunity to organize the 18th Congress of Asian Society of Transplantation (CAST), the biannual regional transplant congress, which is first held in Hong Kong. Despite COVID pandemic and many challenges during the preparation, we have accomplished the mission! CAST is now successfully held at Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre as a fully physical meeting.

 

I am going to conclude my presidency during CAST; therefore, I would like to update members about the landmark activities organized in my second year of service as President of HKST and to announce several future activities in the coming year:

 

Academic activities

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(I) 18th Congress of Asian Society of Transplantation: CAST is a biannual transplant congress of Asian Society of Transplantation. This year, the congress is held in Hong Kong for the first time, on 25-28 August 2023, at Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center, and is jointly organized by Hong Kong Society of Transplantation and Asian Society of Transplantation. This 4-day congress features 6 keynote lectures and 24 symposiums in 4 concurrent sessions, with a total of 240 invited speakers and session moderators. In addition, there are 200 posters and 65 oral presentations selected from around 400 abstracts. This CAST is fully endorsed by APHIA, APSN, AEBA, ILTS, ISN and TTS. We are delighted to collaborate with Transplant Infectious Disease section of the Transplantation Society (TTS-TID), World Transplant Game Federation and Association of Eye Banks of Asia for the first time in CAST meeting.  Prof Chung Mau LO, Secretary for Health of Hong Kong SAR, also blessed our opening ceremony with his presence.

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I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to the Scientific Program Committee chaired by Prof Nancy Kwan MAN, for bringing us an exciting program with many high level international and regional speakers. My most sincere appreciation also goes to the local Organizing Committee for their excellent work.

 

(II) Webinar on Prevention strategies against COVID: : We collaborated with Hong Kong Society of Infectious Disease, Hong Kong Society of Haematology, and Hong Kong Society of Medical Oncology to hold a webinar titled ‘Tackling COVID-19: Prevention Strategies to Protect Immunocompromised Patients’ on 2 November 2022. Prof Ivan Fan Ngai HUNG (Hong Kong) and Dr Hoe Nam LEONG (Singapore) talked on various preventive strategies to tackle COVID-19 including vaccination and antibody therapy. 113 participants had joined the webinar.

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Public Education and Organ donation Promotion Activities

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​(I) Thanksgiving Ceremony: We organized the 2019-2022 Thanksgiving Day on 26 March, 2023. This was the first Thanksgiving Day after the COVID pandemic. The theme of this Thanksgiving Ceremony was "Organ Donation in Pandemic, Love Without Borders (疫境器官捐贈 大愛無疆)". We have invited Prof Chung-Mao LO, Secretary of Health; Dr Michael WONG, Director (Quality and Safety) of Hospital Authority; Dr Raymond HO, Department of Health, be the guests of honor. There were sharing from donor family, transplant recipients, intensivist and organ donation coordinator.  Total of 178 participants joined this thanksgiving ceremony, which included 81 transplant recipients and 40 donor families. This event also gained attention from media and was widely reported in TV, newspaper and social media.

 

​(II) Community video competition on Transplantation and Organ Donation: We organized secondary school student video competition with the aim to encourage student exploring the latest advances and challenges in organ transplantation and to promote organ donation. An online workshop covering topics on organ donation, organ transplantation and video shooting skill was held on 29 December 2022. Dr Ka Foon CHAU, Mr Leecat HO and I were the speakers. There were 72 students from over 35 teams participating in this online workshop. Eventually 24 videos were submitted for competition. We organized online polling as first phase selection and we received over 4000 votes from public. In the second phase assessment, Dr Kelvin Kai-Wah LEE from Hong Kong Baptist University and Mr Leecat HO were our professional judges and 5 outstanding videos were selected by our Judging Committee. The winning video had been played during the CAST opening ceremony. All the videos were also uploaded in our society’s YouTube channel for public viewing.

 

(III) HKST website and social media updates: The Society website has continued to be an active platform for communication and information update. In addition to our Society Facebook page, we also set up Society YouTube channel this year. We posted videos, public polling and short articles about advances in transplant medicine and organ donation regularly. We will continue to promote organ donation and provide transplant education via social media.

 

Upcoming activities

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​(I) New Series of Educational Video in Society YouTube Channel: We have produced 8-episode video series on 'Myth of Organ Transplant'. The videos will address the topics on organ donation (medicolegal and ethical aspect), new technology in different organ transplant and interesting facts about transplantation. We will post the videos in our society’s social media after CAST. May our members please follow our website, Facebook and our new YouTube Channel, and share the educational materials to your friends and patients.

 

(II) Collaboration with American Journal of Transplantation: American Journal of Transplantation has a new initiative called ‘AJT Digest’ that aims to provide transplant patients a lay summary of selected scientific researches to bridge the gap between research information and patients. HKST will help the translation of the AJT Digest to Chinese, and disseminate this educational material to Chinese language community via social media.

 

Lastly, I wish to express my sincere thanks to all the office bearers and council members for their advice and support. I would also like to thank all members for the unfailing support to Hong Kong Society of Transplantation. Hope you enjoy CAST and find it educational and useful.

 

Dr. Maggie Kam-Man MA

President, HKST

26 August 2023