The 30th National Congress of the Italian Society of Thoracic Surgery was held on 25th –28th October 2006 in the wonderful Franciscan town of Assisi. The opening ceremony was held in the marvellous setting of the Pope’s Hall in the Assisi Monastery.
The Chairman, Prof.Giuliano Daddi put together a superb scientific programme which was unfortunately saddened by the untimely death of Dr. Hermes Grillo a few days before he was to give lecture at the congress . His pupil, Doug Mathisen, gave the lecture on the education of thoracic surgeons in the USA in a moving atmosphere and the whole audience paid tribute to Dr. Grillo at the conclusion.
The scientific programme included state-of-art lectures by Joseph Vacanti on Mimicking the living architecture and funcion of the human machine, Doug Mathisen and Dirk van Raemdonck on lung transplantation and Sue Mackinnon on the management of complicated brachial plexus tumors in the surgery of the thoracic outlet. Sessions were devoted to tracheal surgery, COPD, lung cancer, and robotics. Overall attendance was more than 350.