Nephroclinicopathological Meeting
(June 14-15, Pécs, Hungary)

Between June 14 and 15, 2002 a Nephroclinicopathological Meeting was organized as part of the activities of Joint Action Nephrology Eastern Europe (managed by International Soicety of Nephrology - ISN and European Renal Association - ERA) in collaboration with Hungarian Society of Nephrology in Pécs, Hungary.

The program was organized to nephrologists and pathologists of Central- Eastern Europe with the objectives to help nephrologist to understand pathologists' reports on renal biopsies and to help pathologists to give a clinically useful interpretation of these specimens. The lectures included indications of renal biopsies (E. Ritz), technical handling and new methods to examine renal biopsies (K. Amann), indications for renal biopsy and pathological findings in acute renal failure (A. M. Davison, B. Hartley), nephrotic syndrome (J. Nagy, T. Tóth), asymptomatic urinary abnormalities (J. Nagy, B. Hartley), systemic diseases (S. Sonkodi, K. Amann) and renal transplantation (A. Davison, B. Iványi). The presentation of D. Kerjaschki gave an up-to-date lecture about the function and morphology of podocytes and he and W. Hörl provided evidence that these new informations have already influenced the clinical and pathological knowledge of membranous glomerulonephritis. The nephrologists and pathologists in the audience jointly discussed selected cases than effort to illustrate how one has to work together to arrive at the diagnosis and select the appropriate treatment.

The 80 participants came from all of the countries of Central-Eastern Europe: Albania (1), Belarus (1), Bosnia (2), Bulgaria (1), Czech Republic (5), Croatia (2), Estonia (1), Germany (2), Hungary (22), Jugoslavia (6), Lithuania (2), Macedonia (2), Poland (8), Romania (9), Russia (1), Serbia (6), Slovakia (2), Slovenia (1) and Ukraine (6). The meeting was held in the conference hall of the Centre of the Regional Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences which is located in Villa Vasváry. The beautiful building with the pyrogranit reliefs and Zsolnay-ceramics offered a comfortable stay for the high-level meeting. During the coffee breaks and social events the participants from the Central-East European region could discuss special problems with the prominent nephrologists and pathologists. The congenial atmosphere helped to create new friendships among participants, and to start clinicopathological collaborations.

Sincerely yours,