Submitted Abstract
The meetings of the French Arthroscopy Society have a long-standing tradition and a high reputation both in the French-speaking world and internationally. They are known for their high scientific standards and innovation in the fields of arthroscopy, minimally invasive surgery and regenerative medicine in traumatic, degenerative and inflammatory joint diseases. Due to their continuous improvements over the last 3 decades, the society’s stakeholders have tremendously increased the level of surgical science in these respective fields. Although the scientific program of the meeting has not been completely finalized yet, its outlines are similar every year. In 2013, 1100 medical doctors, orthopaedic surgeons and scientists from 29 countries gathered in Bordeaux. A total of 50 hours of courses, lectures, symposia and debates will be proposed to the visitor. The program will start every day at 7.45 am; it ends at 6.10 pm on Thursday and Friday and at 1.30 pm on Saturday. At the beginning of each day, instructional course lectures will be given by renowned experts in their fields. Altogether 15 of these sessions with 45-minutes lectures and 15 minutes discussion will be planned. The program contains further 13 free-paper sessions with 75 presentations. They are selected through an online peer-review abstract submission process and chosen either for oral or poster presentations, depending on their individual rating. Every oral presentation is thoroughly discussed by the public and the session moderators. The best abstracts are preselected for scientific awards chosen by a jury upon the merit of the presentation during the conference. Furthermore, an award will be given for the best scientific presentation of the final thesis of a collaborative university program which is coordinated and co-funded by the SFA to obtain a university degree in arthroscopic surgery. Poster presentations are displayed electronically in the multimedia center and can be visualized throughout the conference in a specifically dedicated area. The deadline of the submission process ends in June 2014. Around 250 submissions will be expected and evaluated by the scientific committee. The accepted abstracts will be published as conference proceedings in the French orthopaedic science journal (Revue de Chirurgie Orthopédique, French and English version). Further highlights of the conference are the presidential lecture, 3 keynote lectures, the current concepts session, a “battle-debate” on a controversial topic and the 2 main symposia. In the latter, the work of 2 large multicenter networks will be presented. This is the result of a specific research program funded by the society. The subjects are chosen by the society members several years in advance during the general assembly and are usually prepared for over 3 years by a panel of 12 young and experienced scientists which are chosen by the society’s scientific committee. This year, the focus will be laid on acromioclavicular joint instabilities and meniscal repair. During these 90-minutes symposia, all aspects of the chosen clinical problems will be presented: the newest basic science data, original research on new diagnostic and therapeutic principles as well as clinical outcome data. The results of this research will be published in the French orthopaedic science journal as well. In a regional symposium, the Society offers the possibility to local speakers to present their most recent scientific advances. The selection of the presenters for this symposium will be made by the congress president and vice-president in cooperation with the scientific chairs of the meeting. The conference will be developed in a way that it can be run with a maximum of 5 parallel sessions, in order to offer the best possible choice to the attendees.