WEO activities at the 2025 China (Central) Wuhan Luojia Digestive Diseases Conference

WEO certification for ERCP training at Wuhan Zhongnan Hospital celebrated at the 2025 China (Central) Wuhan Luojia Digestive Diseases Conference

The 2025 China (Central) Wuhan Luojia Digestive Diseases Conference was successfully held in Wuhan Optics Valley, on March 28–30, 2025.

During the opening ceremony, WEO Past Presidents Professors Jean-Francois Rey and Hisao Tajiri jointly presented a WEO ERCP Training Center certification plaque to Professor Qiu Zhao, representing the Endoscopy Center of Wuhan University Zhongnan Hospital. WEO looks forward to closer collaboration with the Center to provide more training opportunities for trainees from all over the world.

The conference featured 14 academic sessions, involving over 290 experts from within and outside China. There were 14 sessions covering research frontiers, clinical practice advancements, and future developments. The conference covered several topics including biliary and pancreatic diseases; liver diseases and portal hypertension; early diagnosis and treatment of gastrointestinal cancers; the application of artificial intelligence in digestive diseases; new endoscopic techniques; inflammatory bowel disease; gut microbiota; and functional gastrointestinal disorders. A total of 141 academic lectures were delivered. Highlights of the program included streaming of 43 live endoscopic and surgical procedures. Here are some of the cases that were streamed live:

• complex ERCP, for conditions such as gallbladder polyps, post-gastrointestinal bypass bile duct stones, post-liver transplant biliary strictures, intra- and extrahepatic bile duct stones, chronic pancreatitis, and intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm (IPMN);
• EUS and its therapeutic applications, such as fine-needle aspiration for pancreatic lesions and EUS-guided drainage of pancreatic pseudocysts;
• ESD for early gastrointestinal cancers and submucosal tumors;
• submucosal tunneling endoscopic resection (STER), for esophageal submucosal tumors;
• endoscopic retrograde appendicitis therapy (ERAT) for appendicoliths with appendicitis; and
• confocal endoscopy for early cancer screening.

The conference was attended by over 700 healthcare professionals specializing in gastroenterology and endoscopy. The sessions were well attended and there was an opportunity for a lively interaction with attendees and faculty, addressing questions, sharing academic ideas, and exchanging experiences.