The “9th Congress on Menopausal, Gynecological and Endocrinological Issues” organised by the Beijing Obstetrics & Gynecology Hospital at Capital Medical University was held from the 9th – 10th September 2017. There was a pre-congress workshop on Endometriosis on the 8th September and a post-congress workshop on Outpatient Hysteroscopy from the 11th – 12th September.
The University Hospital in Beijing is the largest, specialised women’s hospital in China and the first official Menopause Clinic Centre for China was founded there in 2011.
Xiangyan Ruan and Alfred O. Mueck organised and chaired the congress with tremendous support from their medical students.
There was a large session organised by the IMS with President, Mary Ann Lumsden, Past President, Rod Baber who is now Editor in Chief of the IMS Journal, Climacteric and Nick Panay (former editor of Climacteric and now head of the scientific committee for the 16th World Congress on Menopause in Vancouver in 2018) all giving lectures along with other IMS members – Yu Qi, President of the Chinese Menopause Society, Andrea Genazzani, Tomi Mikkola, Xiangyan Ruan and Alfred Mueck.
Menopause topics covered during the congress included the new IMS guidelines for HRT, perimenopausal bleeding disorders, use of androgens in HRT, premature menopause, large Finnish register studies on cardiovascular morbidity and vascular dementia during use of HRT and new mechanisms of breast cancer development.
All national and international speakers and guests enjoyed the warm welcome and the very special social and cultural atmosphere in Beijing, China.
Rod Baber commented, “The meeting also included a number of interesting presentations on abnormal uterine bleeding, PCOS, Endometriosis, TCM, Office Hysteroscopy and Ovarian tissue cryopreservation and reimplantation. Over 100 cryopreservation procedures have now been performed by Capital Medical University Staff and a highlight of this meeting was to know that the first 4 successful tissue reimplantations have been performed by Prof Ruans team, the first in China.These meetings continue to attract strong delegate numbers always including key opinion leaders from China and beyond. The organisation was a credit to Professors Ruan and Mueck but also to their students whose attention to detail, care and enthusiasm was outstanding.”
Nick Panay said, “From both personal and IMS perspectives, I believe we should try to achieve close collaboration with the Beijing Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Capital Medical University to facilitate research and educational opportunities.
Research: The POI registry has been translated into Chinese and 250 patients have already been entered. Our thanks to Prof Xiangyan Ruan, Prof Alfred Mueck and the students for facilitating this. The registry should yield important etiological, epidemiological and clinical data which will allow us to compare and contrast regional variations in presentation and outcomes. The intention is to take the research further; we are planning collaborative, prospective randomised trials looking at both conventional and Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Educational – Closer educational links could facilitate:
- Further collaborative postgraduate meetings in China (with possibly an IMS regional meeting in the future in Beijing)
- Increased Chinese delegate (at all levels of seniority) attendance and abstract submission at our World Congresses,
- Student / postgrad exchanges between Beijing/China and other countries
- Further translations of abstracts and papers from Climacteric in to Chinese”
