Message from ESGO President

Dear ESGO family, colleagues and friends,
We wish to personally thank you for each of your efforts, in one way or another, to support our society in its primary goal to improve the well-being of women with gynaecological malignancies.

Indeed, our society has grown out of its “childhood shoes” and has become a prominent, well-respected society of substantial size, delivering a remarkable variety of activities and high-quality products with a wide global reach and impact.
We are proud of the ESGO as it stands today, truly deserving to be referred to as

THE voice in gynaecological oncology.

This development would not have been possible without your trust, support and strong belief in the cooperation among disciplines and across country borders, which drives all our activities.

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ESGO is a forum of more than 2,200 members. While Europe is our core strength, the non-European membership continues to grow with over 600 members from various regions of the world, including a particularly substantial community of 120 Indian members. This reflects the global interest in our activities and products.
In addition, 37% of your members are younger than 40 years and form a robust and active network, ENYGO. They are our future.

ESGO membership offers many benefits. Among them is access to one of the world’s most extensive educational libraries comprising more than 2,900 high-quality lectures and 170 surgical videos in gynaecological oncology, our e-Academy Educational Portal.

With the ESGO institutional accreditation processes, we are determined to crucially increase the visibility of the quality in managing patients with gynaecological malignancies, for patients’ and physicians’ referrals. To date, the ESGO has accredited 73 centres for training in gynaecological oncology and 64 for advanced ovarian cancer surgery, including 18 centres of excellence. An increasing number of non-European centres seek ESGO cooperation, resulting in the recent ESGO accreditation of two Egyptian training centres, two Indian centres and the first South-Korean centre.

Today, 57 fellows are undergoing the ESGO subspecialty training programme in gynaecological oncology at the ESGO accredited centres according to the requirements and quality standards of our ESGO training curriculum.
In addition, the first European exam in Gynaecological Oncology implemented by ESGO in 2019 is now a mandatory prerequisite for achieving individual ESGO certification in gynaecological oncology, complementing our ESGO training curriculum.

ESGO has a strong track record in developing guidelines and quality indicators in all major gynaecological malignancies and increasingly also in relevant topic fields, e.g., perioperative management. To date, we have developed a total of 12 high-quality guidelines and quality indicators that provide guidance on the best care in gynaecological oncology globally.
In the ESGO guidelines development process, we closely cooperate with sister societies such as the ESMO, ESTRO, ESP, and SIOPE, to secure harmonisation of treatment in Europe and broad acceptance among disciplines.
Based on these popular guidelines, in 2017 ESGO launched an easy-to-use case-oriented algorithms App for the management of Endometrial, Vulvar, Cervical, Ovarian and Rare Cancers. Over 8,000 professionals currently use the ESGO App, provided with free access.

ESGO offers a remarkable variety of educational events throughout the year, surgical and non-surgical courses (10 offered in 2021) and webinars (43 offered in 2021) with innovative formats targeting both young and experienced professionals seeking continuous education. Our major educational event of the year is the ESGO Congress, which has become the world`s biggest gynaecological oncology gathering, with over 3,000 participants onsite before the pandemic.

We are proud to have a strong patient voice as an integral part of our society, ENGAGE, our society`s patient advocacy umbrella, with over 70 patient advocacy groups in Europe.
In 2019, ESGO and ENGAGe initiated the Annual World Gynaecological Oncology Awareness Day on September 20. In 2021, the awareness campaign reached 7 million people around the world, with an impact on over 40 million people and events in 23 countries, turning the world purple for one day.

The ENGOT, our primary research body, is THE network for the performance of gynaecological oncology trials with over 100 phase I-III trials conducted to date, many of which have changed the standard of care in gynaecological oncology.

• Our vision

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We feel a strong responsibility to not only secure the current status of our society, but to foster the foundation further and adjust some essential requirements that will allow the continued growth and prospering of our society. Beyond, we aim to implement new and complementary activities and expand the amazing existing portfolio for the ESGO. In the focus of all efforts are the benefits for our patients. The approach is driven by cooperation.

The Roadmap of ESGO leadership for the upcoming two years follows sound governance principles to secure financial sustainability and transparency. We aim to reduce the future risks of ESGO by incorporating vital functions, such as grant acquisition and complete financial overview, within the society.

We are delighted to announce that our ESGO congresses go annual, from the previous biennial cycle, starting this year with our first annual congress in Berlin from October 27-30, 2022. We look forward to warmly welcoming you in person to this major event in gynaecological oncology in 2022.

Significant changes, such as translocation of the seat of our European Society from Switzerland to an EU country, will need to be discussed with you, our members, at the upcoming General Assembly at our Congress in Berlin. The ESGO leadership considers this an important step to allow access to European Commission grants, which will probably demonstrate a substantial source of funding for our activities in the future.

Growing membership requests from non-European countries support implementing a democratically elected (by you, our members) seat for a non-European member in the ESGO council. We look forward to discussing these important topics with you at the upcoming General Assembly.

Ambitious scientific aims include the adaptation of ESGO guidelines to limited-resource regions, with a first pilot project launched this year in cervical cancer, expansion of ESGO institutional accreditation processes beyond ovarian cancer surgery to endometrial cancer surgery and cervical cancer management, and further strengthening cooperation with our ESGO accredited centres, by building up a strong joint research network.

We are highly dedicated and honoured to serve ESGO and count on your continued support.

Sincerely and cordially yours,

Nicole Concin, Austria/Germany, ESGO President

and Mansoor Mirza, Denmark, ESGO Vice-President