NATCON 2018

The Indian Association of surgical oncology has conducted its 32nd national meeting at Leela

Kovalam on September 21st to 23rd September 2008. This meeting was jointly organized by the
Kerala Association of Surgical Oncologists (KASO)and Regional Cancer Centre(RCC),
Thiruvananthapuram and was supported by Indian Society of Oncology (ISO)and Association of
Medical Paediatric Oncologists Kerala(AMPOK).
This meeting had a pre-conference social event which was held at the Bishop Hall, Trivandrum and
Napier Museum band stand on 19th September 2018. In this functions Kerala Association of Surgical
Oncologists joined hands with Swasthi Foundation and AMPOK to offer cancer awareness ,
screening and care facilities for families of fishermen, who had rescued thousands of marooned
people from flood hit areas in the state of Kerala. The programme also aimed at creating awareness
about cancer.
The Inauguration of meeting was done on 21st September 2018 at 6.00pm by Princes H H Aswathy
Thirunal Gowri Lakshmi Bayi. The inaugural function was presided by Dr. Sanjay Kapoor President of
IASO. Dr.Rajendra Toprani ( Secretary of IASO), Dr. Satheesan Balasubhramanyam (Director of
Malabar Cancer Institute) and Dr.Chandramohan K (Organizing Secretary of NATCON-2018)n spoke
on the meting . During Inauguration IASO and KASO donated 2L rupees each to Kerala chief
minister’s relief fund to support flood victims.
NATCON IASO-2018 had a pre conference video workshop on 20th September of 2018 held at
Regional Cancer Centre, Trivandrum. Various experts presented their operating videos. It had three
sessions Gynec oncology Session , followed by breast , head and neck session and GI and Sarcoma
session.
Various national and international experts delivered important orations, keynote lectures and
presentations in NATCON IASO-2018 held at Leela Kovalam from September 21
stto 23rd. Among orations, R.S. Rao endowment lecture was given by Dr. Yoon Woon Koh from Korea the topic was
‘Real impacts of robotic head and neck surgery based on the experiences of thousand robotic head
and neck surgeries ;Beyond the cosmesis money”. The prestigious Motibai oration was done by Dr
Venkat V Ramakrishnan, oncoplastic breast surgeon from the UK and he talked about the “Breast
reconstruction followed by mastectomy”. Famous Radhadevi oration was delivered by the
outgoing president of the IASO, Dr. BKC Mohan Prasad from Madurai and his topic was “The surgical
oncology from Gloom to Bloom”. PB Desai- UICC IASO silver jubilee oration, was delivered by Dr.
Goro Honda from Japan who spoke about the “Most proper hepatectomy procedure for colorectal
liver metastases”. NC Misra oration was delivered by Dr. Amando Giuliano from USA and he spoke
about the “The rise and fall of lymphadenectomy for Breast cancer”. The various other keynote
lectures were given by Dr.Palani Velu(Coimbatore ), Dr.Pankaj Chathurvedi ( Mumbai) and
Dr.Shylesh Shirkhande (Mumbai) .Dr.Pankaj presented the to-if “Seminal papers from TMH
addressing dilemmas in head and neck oncology- opportunities and challenges of research in India”.
The meeting also had various panel discussions about various topics in oncology in which stalwarts in
surgical oncology participated as panelist and moderators. The prominent names attended
NATCON IASO as faculty were team from National Cancer Centre ,Singapore lead by Melisa Teo and
Preetha Madukumar , team from China including Dr. Jin Wan and Dr Diao Dechang( Gongshou
Provincial Hospital for Chinese and Modern Medicine) and Dr.Peng (Sunyatsen University
Goungshou).