International oncological student conference at the MUG

24.02.2020

The 2nd Oncological Student Scientific Conference (OSSC) took place at the Medical University of Gdańsk on 21st-22nd February. Over the course of two days, more than 100 participants from 10 universities had a unique opportunity to discuss and share their interest in oncology. The conference was held in English.

During the first day of the event, students had a chance to participate in 4 theoretical and practical workshops on: bone marrow biopsy and trephine biopsies (conducted by Anna Irga-Staniukiewicz, M.D.), punctures of the peripheral veins (Alicja Piechnik, B.N.), fine and core needle biopsy (Scientific Circle of Surgical Oncology, supervisor Marcin Ekman, M.D.) and techniques of ultrasound examinations in oncology (Student Circle of Ultrasonography). The possibilities of using 3D printing in medicine were also discussed in the series of lectures (Jarosław Meyer-Szary, M.D., Ph.D., Jacek Krywko, Finn Schulz and Marlon Souza Luis, BSc, BMath).

Throughout the second day of the OSSC the students had an opportunity to listen to four keynote lectures delivered by: Michał Sobjanek, M.D., Ph.D.: What does melanoma look like?, Paweł Kabata, M.D., Ph.D.: Is it possible to starve a cancer?, Prof. Jacek Jassem: My vision of the future of oncology and Prof. Ewa Bień: Pediatric soft tissue sarcomas – how to break the stalemate?

Three sessions of student presentations were also conducted. The jurors had chosen them prior to the event from a big number of submitted abstracts. All speeches raised important oncological issues.

Students with the highest marks from the judges were as follow:
• 1st place – Mary Abba (Medical University of Gdańsk) – New therapy of Kaposiform Hemangioendothelioma with Kasabach-Merritt phenomenon
• 2nd place – Weronika Radecka (Uniwersity of Opole) – Multiple second malignant neoplasms (SMN) after treatment for Hodgkin’s lymphoma (HL): a 40-year follow-up case study
• 3rd place – Laura Inyingi (Medical University of Gdański) – Renal transplantation – prolongs life but requires careful screening for malignancies

Izabela Morawska (Medical University of Lubling) received the distinction for the most interesting work in the category of Original research ¬ –Does monocytic myeloid-derived suppressor cells (M-MDSC) levels in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia depend on the stage of the disease?

The 2nd OSSC committee was formed by students of the English Division Pediatric Oncology Scientific Circle: Zuzanna Grochecka (PD, VIth year), Małgorzata Styczewska (PD, IVth year). The president of the organizing committee and the coordinator of the activities was an MUG student Marlon Souza Luis (Medical Faculty ED, Vth year).

The circle supervisors are Prof. Ewa Bień, and Małgorzata Krawczyk, M.D., Ph.D. from the Department of Pediatrics, Hematology an Oncology.

Photos by Paweł Sudara, MUG