The 37th Annual Meeting of the European Pediatric Orthopedic Society (EPOS) took place in Oslo in April.

The conference annually gather more than 500 pediatric orthopedic surgeons, many of them working with OI. Since we knew both the international chair (dr. Darko Anticevic) and the national chair (dr. Terje Terjesen), we took the liberty of asking for free tickets for the welcome reception and the lectures related to OI. “We” were Inger-Margrethe Stavdal Paulsen (chair of NFOI) and myself, representing the OIFE. Fortunately we had a very positive reply. We felt truly welcome and it was a pleasure to network with the OI-doctors in the impressive Oslo Town Hall.

Among others, we met dr. Wirth from OIFE’s Medical Advisory Board and as dr. Kruse from Wilmington. Dr. Kruse told us he was interested in getting in touch with orthopedic surgeons with experience from operations on people with recessive OI-types.  During the EPOS Study group (Genetic & Metbolic Group & Spine) session, we got to hear some interesting lectures. The two I remember the most came from dr. Cecilie Rustad, Norway (‘Genes & OI – what is new?’) and dr. Illka Helenius from Finland (Essentials of the C-Spine). The first was probably the easiest and most pedagogic lecture on genetics I’ve heard in a while, and got very good feedback from the surgeons. The second lecture had information on how to treat basilar invagination, something I’ve rarely heard anyone speak about in OI-conferences.

More information about the programme can be found here: https://bit.ly/2xZvuAF