The Second Saudi Pediatric Gastroenterology Symposium kicked off at the InterContinental Hotel in Jeddah Tuesday, with some 50 speakers from Saudi Arabia, the UK, Germany and GCC countries. The two-day symposium, which aims to review the latest advancements in children medical issues, was organized by Jeddah's Maternity and Children Hospital, in collaboration with the Saudi Pediatric Gastroenterology Group. The symposium's eight sessions discussed more than 16 topics related to children, such as gastro-esophageal reflux, helicobacter infection, acute liver failure, fatty liver, liver transplants and long-term parental nutrition for intestinal failure. Dr. Sami Ba-Dawood, director general of the Directorate General of Health Affairs in Jeddah, hoped that the symposium would bring fruitful suggestions. “I hope that this meeting would help our children with a productive and helpful outcome,” he said. “We also hope that the attendees would benefit from the interesting topics selected for discussion in the meeting.” Dr. Abdul-Wahab Telmesani of Umm Al-Qura University's Faculty of Medicine, who also chaired the symposium, told the audience that he hoped the participants would share experiences and discuss topics in their fields. In his abstract, Dr. Sami Wali, pediatric gastroenterologist and hepatologist at the Armed Forces Hospital in Riyadh, said that his hospital had evaluated more than 600 children with various liver disorders since 1998. “We found that the group of progressive familial intrahepatic cholestritis disorders were common among our patients,” he said. __
