On behalf of the Organizing Committee of the 8th Meeting of the Asian- Australasian Federation of Interventional and Therapeutic Neuroradiology (AAFITN2008), I would like to express my sincere appreciation to all participants, guests, sponsoring companies and government organizations for their help and support to this meeting. This meeting was successfully held at the Grand Hotel, Taipei from April 5th to 8th, 2008.
Asian-Australasian Federation of Interventional and Therapeutic Neuroradiology (AAFITN) has been founded in 1994. The main objective of this society is to promote the practice and share the knowledge of interventional and therapeutic neuroradiology in Asian-Australasian through the organization of regional meeting. Seven congresses had been held before by the following presidents: LING Feng (1994 & 1996 - Beijing), Akira TAKAHASHI (2000 - Sendai, Japan), Dong I. KIM (2001 - Seoul, Korea), John Ching- Kwong KWOK (2002 - Hong Kong), Suthisak SUTHIPONGCHAI (2004 - Bangkok, Thailand), and Anil P. KARAPURKAR (2006 - Gore, India). And this meeting is the 8th Meeting.
Altogether, there are 391 persons from 22 countries attended this meeting, including 173 from Taiwan, others from abroad. Totally 162 papers presented in this meeting, including 58 invited speeches, 23 oral free papers, and 81 poster presentations. The main theme on the 1st day was endovascular treatment of intracranial aneurysm; the 2nd day was brain AVM, spine interven- tional; the 3rd day was occlusive vascular disease, including stenting of in- tracranial, head & neck, and revascularization of acute stroke. There were three lunch symposiums, Penumbra device (the revascularization device), Mi- crovention (HES for aneurysm embolization), and Boston Scientific (Wingspan stent /Gateway system for intracranial atherosclerotic stenosis).
The executive committee made the following decisions: (1) Officers of AAFITN 2008-2010: President - Michael Mu Huo TENG, Vice-president - Sirintara PONGPECH; Secretary General - Hongqi ZHANG, Treasurer - John Ching-Kwong KWOK. (2) Next AAFITN congress meeting: 2010, Melbourne (president: Vincent Chong).
I am glad that our society - AAFITN adopt "International Neuroradiology" as our official journal, and that we can make a special issue for AAFITN 2008 here. I would appreciate that previous Editor-in-Chief Pierre L. Lasjau- nias's consent to make this special issue, and professor Marco Leonardi's great help in making this true.
Executive committee meeting of AAFITN 2008 (from left hand to right): Chao-Bao LUO (secretary general of AAFITN 2008), LING Feng (President of AAFITN 20062008), Michael Mu Huo TENG (President of AAFITN 2008)
Professor Vincent CHONG, will hold AAFITN 2010 at Melbourne, Australia.
Professor Pierre Lasjaunias, the President of World Federation of Interventional and Therapeutic Neuroradiology, delivered several lectures in AAFITN 2008.
Professor Marco Leonardi announced XIX Symposium Neuroradiologicum to be held at Venice, Europe, 16 - 21 October 2010 and gave several special lectures at the AAFITN 2008.