23 September 2025

Last week Australia’s peak upper gastrointestinal surgical body, the Australian & Aotearoa New Zealand Gastric & Oesophageal Surgery Association (AANZGOSA), held its Annual Scientific Congress at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, in partnership with faculty members from the International Society for Diseases of the Esophagus (ISDE).

This landmark event brought together national and international experts in surgery, oncology, gastroenterology, radiotherapy, allied health, nursing, and patient advocacy, to discuss and share the latest advances in the treatment of malignant, benign and metabolic diseases of the foregut.

This meeting was co-convened by our very own A/Prof David Liu, Oesophago-gastric Cancer Surgeon, and featured multiple clinicians and allied health professionals from Austin Health, who showcased their expertise and research findings:

• A/Prof Ahmad Aly, Director Upper Gastrointestinal Surgery Unit, who delivered the presidential plenary lecture ‘Obesity management & Bariatric Surgery: Lessons learnt over 20 years and new horizons’
• Prof Niall Tebbutt, Director Medical Oncology, who delivered the Keynote in Cancer Therapy lecture ‘Immune and molecular therapies for gastric cancer: What works and where are we heading?’
• Prof Carlene Wilson, Psycho-oncology Research Scientis, who delivered the Keynote in Cancer Journey lecture ‘Psychosocial considerations during cancer treatment’
• A/Prof Yuto Shimamura, Clinical Lead Interventional Endoscopy, who delivered the technical lecture ‘G-POEM and third space gastric endoscopy’
• Dr Ashley Bigaran, Exercise Physiologist and Operations Manager, who delivered the cancer survivorship lecture ‘A practical approach to implementing exercise preoperative programs’
• Ms Bianca Ukovic, Dietician, who delivered her research abstract ‘Multi-modal prehabilitation for oesophago-gastric cancer surgery (SOCS): a registry based clinical trial’
• Dr Brendan Desmond, Upper Gastrointestinal Surgical Fellow, who delivered his research abstract ‘Open vs minimally invasive transthoracic oesophagectomy following neoadjuvant FLOT chemotherapy for gastroesophageal cancer: An Australian and New Zealand cohort study’.

Excitingly, Dr Desmond took out the best paper prize, and Ms Bianca Ukovic was awarded the AANZGOSA travel bursary.

Reflecting on the event, A/Prof David Liu remarks, “This meeting really highlighted on a world-stage, the important contributions that Austin Health professionals are making towards advancing care for patients affected by foregut diseases.”

Our staff who presented at the AANZGOSA Annual Scientific Congress