26 WORLD GASTROENTEROLOGY NEWS OCTOBER 2017 Editorial | Expert Point of View | WCOG at ACG 2017 | WDHD News | WGO & WGOF News | WGO Global Guidelines | Calendar of Events Certain epidemiological differences are rapidly decreasing due to the reloca-tion and mixing of populations every-where, through international travel, immigration and refugees , and I only expect this to grow. As a consequence, the appearance in academic hospitals of import diseases and rare or non-endemic infections for instance is impressive nowadays. This too calls for global uni-versal guidelines. The management of Strongyloides infection is not depending on where in the world it appears. There are fewer and fewer diseases that only occur in one specific area. The updating of guidelines is criti-cal, recommendations that are valid and work for 100 years do not exist, the system should be designed in such a way that a committee keeps up with the developments and decides when an update is justified . In some areas of gastroenterology and hepatology progress and changes are so fast that it isn’t easy to keep our guidelines up-to-date, our Hepatitis C guideline is a good example of how difficult that is. When there is a lot of disagreement, guideline develop-ment teams may not reach consensus, but I don’t think 100% consensus is an absolute requirement. I feel that the dissemination of our guidelines can still be much improved and there too, along with internet, is a role for the national societies, we have to keep pushing that they promote our global guidelines. And why wouldn’t we, in certain cases, massively distrib-ute industry-sponsored printouts of our guidelines at regional meetings? I also feel that an overview should be presented of our guidelines and cascades in all WGO training centers. A selection of those guidelines that are especially important locally could be highlighted during the courses with an instruction to further promote usage by their col-leagues. Professor Tytgat retired in Decem-ber 2002 but is still involved in several gastroenterology and scientific activi-ties and organizations despite several personal medical crises in the past few years. Soon, he will turn 80 years old and he “hopes to continue his gastroen-terological passions for some time, God willing.” The updating of guidelines is critical, recommendations that are valid and work for 100 years do not exist, the system should be designed in such a way that a committee keeps up with the developments and decides when an update is justified. Related links for more information: World Gastroenterology Organisa-tion http://www.worldgastroenterol-ogy. org/about-wgo/history-of-wgo/ timeline Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences https://www.knaw. nl/en/members/members/4885 Tytgat Institute https://www.amc. nl/web/Research/Overview/Depart-ments/ Tytgat-1/Tytgat-Institute/De-partment. htm GastroHep.com https://www. gastrohep.com/profiles/default. asp?person=gtytgat Gastro Update Europe https:// gastro-update-europe.eu/board/
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