The 16th International Thyroid Congress Sketch
December 16 – 20, 2020, China
The 16th International Thyroid Congress (ITC) was held in China, between December 16 through 20, 2020.
The 16th ITC was hosted by the Asia & Oceania Thyroid Association (AOTA) and Chinese Society of Endocrinology (CSE), Chinese Medical Association (CMA). It was co-sponsored by sister societies Latin American Thyroid Society (LATS), European Thyroid Association (ETA) and American Thyroid Association (ATA). The congress was originally planned to be held in Xi’an, China in September, 2020. Due to the pandemic of COVID-19, it was eventually held as a virtual conference in December 2020.
Members of program organizing committee were Weiping Teng (Chair, AOTA, China), Chao Liu (AOTA, China), Minho Shong (AOTA, Korea), Masanobu Yamada (AOTA, Japan), Gabriela Brenta (LATS, Argentina), Claudia Pellizas (LATS, Argentina), José Augusto Sgarbi (LATS, Brazil), Duncan Bassett (ETA, UK), Anita Boelen (ETA, Netherlands), George Kahaly (ETA, Germany), Laura Fugazzola (ETA, Italy), Dagmar Führer (ETA, Germany), Sheue-yann Cheng (ATA, USA), Susan Mandel (ATA, USA) and Ralph P. Tufano (ATA, USA). Key members of local organizing committee were Jiajun Zhao (LOC Chair), Yiming Mu (LOC Co-Chair), Zhongyan Shan, Chao Liu and Bingyin Shi.
The concept of the 16th ITC meeting was “INTERDISPLINARY”. The program organizing committee contributed to a high-level scientific program. The program included 1 session regarding recent advances in thyroidology (4 lectures delivered by Robin Peeters, Gregory A. Brent, Fereidoun Azizi and Ana Luiza Maia, respectively), 12 plenary lectures (delivered by Zhongyan Shan, Fabian Pitoia, Anthony Hollenberg, Rosella Elisei, Yaron Tomer, Denise Pires de Carvalho, Greg Randolph, Ki-Wook Chung, Graham Williams, Jiajun Zhao, Ralf Paschke and Mikio Watanabe), 26 symposium sessions (80 lectures) and 3 award lectures (awarded by AOTA, ETA and ATA, respectively). Three awardees announced at this congress were Paul Yen (AOTA), Antonio Bianco (ETA) and Nadia Schoenmakers (ATA). The “INTERDISPLINARY” concept was reflected by cross-talks between different disciplines in symposium sessions, from basics science to translational research to various clinical perspectives.
The congress provided a great platform for international endocrine specialists, surgeons and other health professionals to present and discussed the up-to-date research and developments in thyroidology. Ninety-nine speakers were from 18 countries, and were members of AOTA (33), LATS (17), ETA (19), ATA (25) and non-society members (5). The number of registered participants was 1 190 from 45 countries. The congress videos had received over 25 000 hits as of March 31, 2021.
The 16th ITC congress was closed following the announcement that we would meet again in the 17th International Thyroid Congress, June 18-22, 2025 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.