Farewell Message from Prof. Bruno Zilberstein, 11^th IGCA President and 11th IGCC Congress President

Dear IGCA colleagues,

It was a great honor and joy to be elected as IGCA President (2015-2017). It gave me the opportunity to contact people from all over the world, change and improve knowledge and also contribute to spread out the role of our Association.
Before I assumed a position as President, we launched Pan-American Gastric Cancer Congress, and during the term, we have promoted it as an IGCA regional chapter. It is a biennial Congress and held in Latin America in the years between the IGCCs. We have already had the 3rd Congress, and the next Congress will be held in Buenos Aires - Argentina in November 2018. After it, it will be promoted by our Peruvian colleagues. Also last year we organized in Lisbon - Portugal a very nice meeting on Gastric Cancer gathering European and Latin American experts under the presidency of Prof. Paulo Costa from Lisbon. All those events allowed us to form the foundation and origination of the Latin American Chapter of IGCA together with our Italian friends under the leadership of Prof. Giovanni de Manzoni and Prof. Franco Roviello who launched the European Chapter of IGCA. In 2015, we organized the 11^th IGGC meeting in São Paulo Brazil with the presence of more than 1,500 participants from 72 countries and recently under the presidency of Prof. Jia Fu Ji the marvelous 12^th IGCC in Beijing, China.
All those activities and the promotion of the Korean Gastric Cancer Congress besides the Chinese Gastric Cancer Congress and the traditional and most important Annual Meeting of Japanese Gastric Cancer Association have offered our members the opportunities to participate in meetings in English, and it has made it possible for us to develop our Association even more.
In this right moment, I wish to thank all our members for the trust and the support you have given to me and to express my gratitude particularly to Prof. Yamaguchi, Prof. Maruyama, Prof. Takeshi Sano, Secretary General and Prof. Han-Kwang Yang, Treasurer of IGCA besides the inestimable help of Ms. Atsuko Okamoto from Secretariat office, the living soul of IGCA. Without their help, I would never have been able to fulfill my mission.

I wish Prof Jia-Fu Ji a lot of strength, determination and success in his new mission as President of the IGCA. I would like to ask all my dear colleagues and IGCA members to extend the same kind support as you have given me to him.
See you in our next meetings; in Europe -Sicily, under the presidency of Prof. Maurizio de Giuli, and then after in Buenos Aires - Argentina, under the organization of Dr. Federico Cuenca Abente and finally 13^th IGCC 2019 in Prague under the Presidency of Prof. Florian Lordick.
Wish you all a profitable and continuous participation in our IGCA.

Best Regards

Prof. Bruno Zilberstein
11^th IGCA President

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