Dear Colleagues
Dear Friends

We have the great pleasure to announce that we will again organize in September 14-15, 2020, in Hôpital FOCH, in Suresnes, very close to Paris, the next DEF (Disease Education Forum) seminar.

After the successes of the two first seminars dedicated respectively to “Spinal Cord Vascular Malformations” and to “Cerebral Veins”, and that gathered more than 120 participants coming from all over the world, we will deal this time with “Vessel Wall- Angiogenesis- Related Pathologies”.

The format of the seminar, appreciated and praised by both lecturers and participants, will remain the same: we will focus during two full consecutive days on one topic that will be analyzed in detail, from basic neurosciences to therapeutic applications.

The aim is to increase and enrich our knowledge about a component of the vascular tree that is often less well understood or sometimes even neglected. The vessel wall represents indeed a specific entity that ongoingly and dynamically interacts with its environment and will thus be a key to many pathophysiological phenomena creating specific symptoms or diseases ( among which aneurysms are the most known)… Biological or genetical defects of the arterial wall lead to severe conditions as for example in Ehlers Danlos syndrome that requires specific therapeutic considerations. Furthermore, angiogenesis is an active phenomenon that modifies vascular lesions over time, which cannot be forgotten when one studies these lesions in both adult and pediatric populations. It may evenbe responsible for particular malformations as cerebral proliferative angiopathy.

A specific DEF studying various aspects of the vessel wall and angiogenesis, from vasculogenesis to embryology and anatomy, from physiology to illnesses, malformations, symptoms and treatments will help us to better understand diseases we face daily in our practice, and will improve our patient management.

Many international speakers will join us for this third DEF, to share their experience and to participate in intense debates and fruitful discussions. You know already some of them and appreciated the quality of their presentations. They all accepted enthusiastically to come back to Foch for this third thrilling adventure. We are happy to welcome also new members of the faculty, all specialists in their respective fields, and we thank them for having agreed to participate to this new seminar.

We will be pleased to welcome all of you for these two working days in September 2020, organized in the Department of Diagnostic and Therapeutic Neuroradiology of Hôpital FOCH, labelled by the French
Ministry of Health as “Reference Center for Rare Diseases” including central nervous system vascular malformations, in collaboration with the departments of Neuroradiology of Nancy and Karolinska University Hospital.

We hope that you will appreciate the program that we have created and we are looking forward to see you for a productive and stimulating DEF, and also to enjoy the vibrant end of the summer in Paris.

With all our best regards and welcome!

Georges RODESCH , Suresnes
Serge BRACARD, Nancy
Michael SÖDERMAN , Stockholm