Minutes of meetings

BAUP 3rd Annual meeting

The meeting was a felt, once more, to be a great success and was once again held as a parallel session at BAUS Oncology on the 14^th November 2008.

50 uropathologists gathered to hear an series of talks. Top of that list, must be Ken Grigor who has served uropathology for over thirty years, and is retiring in 2009. His hugely entertaining talk was enjoyed by all, even a rather protracted teasing of the current BAUP secretary with Ken’s suggestions for grading schemes in the future for prostate cancer. He will be much missed in the UK and internationally, and we all wished him a happy and fulfilling retirement.

Dr Ashish Chandra then outlined the current minimum dataset for renal carcinoma, and the detailed investigations of vessel invasion and fat invasion were then thoroughly dissected by Dr Griffiths, who presented some novel data.

Dr Dekhmush presented her experiences with translocation carcinomas with great thoroughness, and then our invited speaker, Prof Stephan Storkel, gave an extremely detailed, yet entertaining talk on the rarer entities in renal neoplasia, with many pictures showing the similarity in appearance of tumours with entirely different biologies.

Dr Harnden then presented the prostate EQA information, demonstrating a wide divergence of opinions on several cases, and there was some discussion on the ways that this might be reduced.

After lunch, two case presentations were made by Dr Alex Freeman and by Prof Stewart Fleming.

Dr Meyer than presented a discussion on the non-prostate EQA. Amny problems were apparent, not least submission of non-suitable cases. Divergence of opinion was also a problem with many cases just failing to reach the 80% threshold needed to validate them. It was agreed to reduce the threshold to 70% for the next round.

The business meeting was once again brief.

Dr Griffiths outlined the successful prostate and bladder/kidney/testis courses that were run last year. The same courses will be run in 2009, and are already nearly fully subscribed.

This has resulted in an increase in the available funds, which will be used to invite outside speakers.

Dr Corbishley mentioned that a subgroup of BAUP had been formed of those interested in penile tumour pathology, called the ‘hob-nobs’ . All with an interest, especially the penile cancer centre leads were encouraged to join.

The next meeting would be, in all likelihood ,held at BAUS oncology in Birmingham. It is to be hoped that a joint session on testicular cancer can be held, though the main meeting would, in all probability be based on bladder cancer.

It was agreed that there would be a rotation of posts in the next year, though to keep a sense of continuity, this would be done in a staggered fashion. Invitations to apply for posts in BAUP would be sent out in 2009, and if more than one applicant applied, then electronic voting would be organised.

The organisers were thanked for a smooth and successful meeting, and the meeting closed at 4;10pm.

BAUP 2nd Annual Meeting Minutes

The meeting took place in Bristol on the 9^th Nov 2007. An audience of over 70 came to hear a range of speakers including out invited overseas speaker Dr Lars Egevad, who spoke about current European pathological practice in the processing of radical prostatectomy specimens. There were also talks by Dr G Turner, Dr J Oxley, Dr M Varma and Dr D Griffiths

Dr Harnden gave a brief outline of the prostatic biopsy EQA, and most of the afternoon session was taken up by an animated discussion of the non-prostate EQA, by Dr N Meyer, highlighting the challenges of developing an EQA. The meeting was warmly received, all the speakers thanked for their sterling work.

The business meeting was very short. Dr Griffiths thought the first full year of the meeting had been a great success with two over-subscribed prostate teaching days. A further prostate day and a longer teaching session on non-prostate pathology was planned for 2008, as well as a formal 3^rd BAUP meeting which was provisionally planned, once again to have a parallel session with BAUS Oncology, following the success of this meeting. There were now over one hundred members, and it was agreed that at present, membership would remain free, and the society funded through its teaching programme. However the long term status of the EQA was recognised as a potential area in need of funds to support it.

The treasurer reported that funds were at present good, with money to continue to cover expenses for overseas speakers.

The Secretary reported the website was proving popular and now had many messages on its guest book.

There being no other business raised by members, the meeting was declared closed, after a vote of thanks to Dr Griffiths for organising such a successful event.