ESPR/nutrition and mineral metabolism

MINUTES

Section Meeting, Rhodes, 27.09.2000, Nefeli Room, h 8.00

Present:

Carlo Agostoni, Milan, Italy - Secretary (1999-2002)
N Belton, Edinburgh, UK
K Heinonen, Kuopio, Fi
V Hesse, Berlin, De
RJ Cooke, Newcastle, UK
A Verrotti, Chieti, It
F Cermak, Usti NL/CR, Cz
F Savino, Torino, It
Decsi T, Pecs, Hu
Lafeber H, Amsterdam, Nl
O Genzel, Munich, De
M Saenz de Pipaon, Sp

The following points have been addressed:

1. What is going on in the Society:
   The secretary informs about the "status" of the leading Section in the Society (The Neonatology Section) and the possibility (raised by the Neonatology Secretary, Virgilio Carnielli) that in the future some courses could be organized the days before the meeting in order to attract more younger neonatologists and sponsors. It has been agreed that the proposal is of interest, providing that nutritional issues could be organized directly by the Nutrition Section.
   Action: C Agostoni in the Council
2. Comments on the Section Abstracts:
   41 abstracts have been submitted , and 38 have been accepted. So the acceptance rate has been 92%. The Secretary would like to raise the number of the submitted abstracts, and observes that abstracts assigned to other sections would have been more appropriately submitted to the Nutrition Section.
   Action: C Agostoni in the Council during the selection phase of abstracts
3. Proposals for the 2001 Meeting in Helsinki (Agust 5-8, President: Kari Raivio):
   After looking at the preliminary program, it has been agreed to submit a formal proposal to K Raivio to organize a session on nutrition (plenary either parallel) with 2 invited speakers and 2 selected abstracts, as for the Rhodes Meeting in the "Oxygen day". Proposed topics for invited speaker have been indicated in
   - Energy balance and requirements in ventilated (or ill?) preterm infants
   (mostly aimed at neonatologists)
   - Nutrients (or Nutrition) and the lung
   (also including general paediatrics, such as asthma, obesity, children growing with BPD, and so on)
   Action: C Agostoni will contact K Raivio. Proposals on potential speakers to C Agostoni are welcome from all the members.
4. Election of a new Section Council member:
   C Agostoni proposes H Lafeber for the second position of Council member (2000-2002) and the group approves. The 2nd Council Member, Roberto Bellù (1999-2001), is actively participating to the activities of the Society. Potential candidates for this position in the 2001-2003 period are welcome. According to the Constitution of the Section, while the Secretary should be an active member (< 50 years) Council members may be either active or senior members.
5. Mailing list of Section Members:
   Some new e-mail addresses from the members present at the meeting have been included in the mailing list.
6. Any other business:
   - H Lafeber has presented the program of the ESPGHAN Summer School, that should be held in Amsterdam during the last week of June, 2001, endorsed by both the ESGHAN and the ESPR. Candidates should submit a CV with a letter of presentation by the Chairman to H Lafeber, e-mail hn.lafeber@azvu.nl
   - Five reviewers are required for the selection of the Abstracts. The following people have been identified:
   C Agostoni (secretary)
   R Bellù (Council member)
   H Lafeber (Council member)
   RJ Cooke (previous secretary)
   T Decsi (Eastern Countries)
   Action: C Agostoni to K Raivio
   - C Agostoni informs that the "official" names of the ESPR Sections should be replaced with the following form: ESPR/Section (ESPR/Nutrition, ESPR/Brain development, ESPR/Neonatology, ESPR/Microcirculation, ESPR/Epidemiology..)

h 8.30: End of the Section Meeting

Milano, Oct 19, 2000
C Agostoni

The Annual Business Meeting of the working groups was held on the 16/9/98 at the Belfst Waterfront Hall on the 16/9/98

Minutes for Approval

1. The minutes from Annual Business Meeting, held in Szeged, Hungary on Sept 2nd 1977 were approved. There were no questions arising from these minutes.
2. It was uniformly agreed that the working group continue to have an important input into nutrition/mineral content of each meeting, as had occured in Belfast. It was also agreed that scope of of topics be extended to the 'normal' infant and child. Future topics which were proposed included: a) Breast feeding in Europe; b) Nutritional aspects of restrictive diets; e.g., cow milk and other allergies, inborn errors of metabolism, etc; c) Methods of feeding preterm infants; e.g., continuous versus bolus feeds, orogastric versus nasogastric feeds, etc; d) Methods of nutritional assessment; e.g., the value of knemometry BUN in the assessment of protein nutritional status, etc e) Weaning diet; timing and nature of; f) Neurodevelopmental aspects of feeding; g) Mineral requirements in preterm infants; e.g., trace elements, Ca, P, etc; h) Nutrition in Pediatric Sports Medicine;
3. The format of the sessons were also discussed. It was generally agreed that overview lectures were of value more in plenary sessions and that debatable issues, as had occured in Belfast, were an important step forward
4. Joint venture between ESPR and other societies; e.g. ESPGAN, were discussed. The ongoing discussions between ESPR and ESPGAN were outlined. There was clear agreement that this was an important way forward. However, it was also pointed out that this a small part of larger issue; i.e., how can ESPR foster relations with other societies in hte Pediatric field, which needed to be discussed at The Annual General Meeting of the ESPR.

There being no further business the meeting was concluded 13.45.

Richard Cooke (secretary) Sept 1998