The First National Congress on Management of Thyroid Cancers was held on 20th- 21st August 2016. The events included a pre-congress operative workshop, where stalwarts in the field namely Dr. Anil D’cruz, Dr. Amit Agrawal and Dr. Ashok Shenoy performed surgical demonstrations on hemi-thyroidectomy, total thyroidectomy and central compartment neck dissections. The delegates enjoyed a didactic interaction with the operating faculty and were enlightened with the nuances of thyroid surgery. The surgeries were complimented with informative lectures on pre-operative assessment (imaging, cytology included), surgical pearls and post-operative management of thyroid cancers.

The inaugural session saw the official installation of the Indian Society of Thyroid Surgeons and its administrative body. The governing council members included Dr. Anil D’Cruz, Dr. Amit Agrawal, Dr. Deepak Abraham, Dr. Ashok Shenoy, Dr. Moni Kuriakose, Dr. Madan Kapre with Dr.SubramaniaIyer as the Chairman of the Governing Council and Dr.JyotiDabholkar as the Editor-in-chief for the Journal of the society. The council voted and selected the office bearers for the first term- Founder President Dr. Madan Kapre, Secretary Dr.PrathameshPai and Treasurer Dr. K.K. Thankkappan. The Honourable Chief Minister of Maharasthra state, Mr. DevendrajiFadnavis presided over the meeting and applauded the efforts of the founder members and delegates while inaugurating the meeting and the Indian Society of Thyroid Surgeons (ISTS). The grand masters of thyroid surgery across the globe also sent their good wishes for the congress and the newly formed ISTS. To name a few, Prof.Jatin Shah, Prof. Ashok Shaha from Memorial Sloan Kettering USA, Prof. Gregory Randoplh from Harvard University USA, Prof. Yasuhiro Ito Japan, Prof. Kyung Tae Korea and Prof. Jeremy Freeman Canada conveyed their sentiment through inspiring congratulatory video messages.

The second day of the congress was a CME programme with stimulating academic content. It featured lectures, case based panel discussions and issue based debates comprehensively covering the important aspects of management of thyroid cancers. The day’s programme also included a special Proffered Papers session which allowed the young aspiring surgeons to showcase their original research work and gain valuable inputs from the senior faculty.

The congress ended with suggestions from the founder members and delegates for future satellite regional meetings focussed on thyroid cancer care around the country.

Registration

• Indian Society of Thyroid Surgeons is registered under the Charity Commissioner of Nagpur and has an independent PAN card, constitution and by-laws that were drafted and approved jointly by the then Governing Council members
• Dr Subramania Iyer (Chairman)
• Dr Madan Kapre
• Dr Anil Dcruz
• Dr Amit Agrawal
• Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi
• Dr Ashok Shenoy
• Dr Deepak Abraham
• Dr Moni Kuriakose

• The ISTS was formed as a collaborative effort of like-minded surgeons who were passionate about the spread of knowledge and craft of thyroid surgery across the country
• The first meeting was conducted in Nagpur and Dr Madan Kapre was the Founding President, Dr Prathamesh Pai was honorary secretary
• The 1st meeting had approximately 250 attendees
• Inauguration was at the hands of Hon Shri Devendra Fadnavis
• The meeting comprised of surgical workshop followed by two days of lectures, debates, symposia and oral paper presentations

• The 2nd Annual Meeting of ISTS was hosted by CMC Vellore under the leadership of Dr Deepak Abraham
• The theme of the meeting was auditing thyroid surgery as a method of improving technical skill and consequently surgical outcomes
• It was well attended by more than 150 general, head and neck and endocrine surgeons

• The 3rd meeting was hosted by Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai.
• The extensive scientific programme comprehensively covered all aspects of thyroid management including radiology, IONM, molecular biology and newer advancements and research review for advanced thyroid cancers.
• Dr Gouri Pantvaidya and Dr Archi Agrawal were organizing secretaries

• The 4th meeting was hosted by SGPGI, Lucknow.
• This was a joint meeting with the International Society of Plastic and Endocrine Surgeons and the theme of the conference was “Newer Horizons in Scarless Thyroid Surgery”

• The 5th annual meeting was hosted by Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi.
• It was in collaboration with the Asia Pacific Thyroid Society and showed wide participation from several countries such as Korea, China, Myanmar, Italy, Indonesia, etc with approx. 300 registrations
• The meeting included pre-conference workshops on operative thyroidectomy, imaging, IONM, laryngeal re-innervation, etc

The 6th Annual National Conference of the Indian Society of Thyroid Surgeons (ISTS) was held at Kolkata on 7-9th June 2024. Dr Jyoti Dabholkar (Professor Emeritus, KEM hospital, Mumbai and Consultant, HN Reliance hospital, Mumbai) as President, Dr Krishnakumar Thankappan (Professor, Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi) as Secretary and Dr Devendra Mahore (Head of Dept at Government Medical College, Nagpur) as Treasurer were the ISTS office bearers for the conference. The conference was supported by Foundation for Head and Neck Oncology and Association of Otolaryngologists of India West Bengal. Dr Anurabha Sengupta (Head of Dept SSKM institute) was the Organising Chairman, Dr Sourav Dutta (Senior Consultant, Medica Mutli-specialty Hospital) was the convenor whereas Dr Harsh Dhar (Senior Consultant, Medica Mutli-specialty Hospital) was the Organising Secretary. Dr Joseph Scharpf (Professor Head and Neck Surgery, Cleveland Clinic), Dr Julie Ann Sosa (Professor, University of California) and Dr Kyuang Tae (Director, Asia Pacific Thyroid Society) were the foreign faculty. The conference had a record breaking 326 registrations. It began with 3 pre-conference workshops- Cadaver dissection and Demonstration (Dr Madan Kapre, Dr Arunabha Sengupta), Surgical videos and training (Dr Kyuang Tae, Dr Jyoti Dabholkar) and Radiology (Dr Alka Singhal). The following two-days were packed with high quality academics through panel discussions, lectures, debates and key note speeches. Dr Sosa elucidated on formulation of Thyroid Cancer guidelines, Dr Scharpf enlightened the audience regarding molecular biology in his oration lecture and Dr Tae mesmerized one and all with his remote access thyroidectomy techniques.
The participation from delegates was unprecedented as could be seen by the quality of presentations in Oral papers and E-poster competitions. The published hard copy version of Indian Thyroid Cancer Guidelines was distributed to all delegates.
The inauguration function was presided over by Chief Guest respected Dr. Siddhartha Neogi Director of Health Services Govt. Of West Bengal He was pleased to see the progress of the Society in such a short span of time and encouraged its efforts towards spreading knowledge regarding the skill and science of management of thyroid disorders.