BSOMP 2018 Meeting (25-27 April)

Hannah Crane (sheffield)

The annual BSOMP conference was held in Sheffield from 25th to the 27th April 2018; it was a brilliant conference (although I accept I might be a little biased!), with multiple excellent sessions.

It started with a trainee teaching event on the Wednesday afternoon, which was very well attended. The slides that were circulated beforehand gave everyone a chance to review them before the session and there was an excellent blend of cases, from fairly common to the really unusual! Dr Sharon White gave an excellent presentation and thanks must go to her and Lisette for organising this session.

dr sharon white (dundee) undertaking the trainee teaching session.

Thursday morning marked the start of the conference and it was a busy morning setting up all the posters and registering. This was followed by some excellent oral presentations that highlighted the quality of the research currently being undertaken in the field. This was followed by the quick one minute oral presentations by the authors of each of the posters, which are quick paced but certainly encourage you to go and look at them during the coffee and lunch breaks.

Thursday 26 April- Morning Session

After lunch, there was an excellent Keynote lecture from Khin Thway; this was a fantastic overview into the current understanding of molecular diagnostics in head and neck cancer. I found it was a very useful lecture, giving an overview of molecular techniques commonly used in the head and neck. This was followed by an excellent slide seminar, with a range of challenging salivary diagnoses that are excellent future resources.

Conference dinner in the 'picturing sheffield gallery' weston park museum.

Thursday evening was a particular highlight of the conference, the conference dinner entitled “Night at the Museum”! Drinks amongst the Woolly Rhino were followed by a delicious three course dinner and the evening ended with a Yorkshire themed pub quiz!

reception drinks at weston park museum with woolly rhinos and dinosaurs!

The second day of the conference started with a Keynote lecture from Dan Lambert, who gave an excellent overview of the extensive research his group has carried out into cancer associated fibroblasts. The symposium that followed gave an insight into some of the molecular pathology initiatives and studies currently underway in the UK; including the 100,000 genomes project, Head and Neck 5000 and the CM-Path initiative. The conference concluded with the Head and Neck EQA, which always provides an interesting mix of cases.

Overall the conference was extremely well organised and enjoyable, there were certainly sessions that everyone could enjoy and take something from. I would definitely like to thank the organisers for all their hard work and look forward to Dublin next year!