The three-day Scientific Program from October 5-7 covered multidisciplinary components: gastroenterology, endoscopy, liver diseases and surgery, which was started by the Plenary Session chaired by Prof. Shudong Xiao, Prof. Zhonglin Yu of China, and Prof. K M Fock of Singapore which covered four lectures on “GERD and Barrett’s Esophagus: The Diagnosis and Treatment”presented by Prof. Richard Holloway of Australia, Prof. David Armstrong of Canda, Prof. Nimish Vakil of USA, and Prof. KM Fock of Singapore respectively . One of the scientific highlights of the day was the IBD Working Party Meeting held later in the morning session, which was chaired by Prof. Qin Ouyang of China, Prof. S K Lam of Hong Kong, China, and Prof. Sang-In Lee of Korea. This meeting was devoted to the epidemiology, diagnosis, and treatment of Inflammatory Bowel Disease, during which Prof. Claudio Fiocchi gave his talk on the Pathogenesis, Prof. KM Fock gave his talk on Methodologies, Prof. KL Goh gave his talk on Epidemiology, Prof. Rakesh Tandon gave his talk on Diagnosis, Prof. Qin Ouyang gave his talk on treatment, and Prof. SK Lam gave his talk on the Asian Pacific response to the Consensus on IBD. Afterwards, the Okuda Lecture was presented. Prof. Daiming Fan was the Okuda Lecturer of this year’s APDW Congress, whose title of lecture was “A bird’s-eye view on gastric cancer research of the past 25 years”. The first-day’s afternoon session was divided into several concurrent sessions in gastroenterology, digestive endoscopy, hepatology, and surgery respectively.

The second day’s program was started by several concurrent sessions, followed by another scientific highlight of the Congress, the Gastric Cancer Awareness Campaign initiated by both International Digestive Cancer Alliance and Chinese Society of Gastroenterology. This session was chaired by Prof. Shudong Xiao of China, Prof. Meinhard Classen of Germany, and Prof. Sidney Winawer of USA, followed by an Opening Remark by Prof. Shudong Xiao and Prof. Meinhard Classen, and a Welcoming Address by Prof. Qide Han of China. During this session, Prof. Sidney Winawer of USA gave a worldwide view of gastric cancer, Prof. Weicheng You of China talked about the Etiology and Prevention of gastric cancer, Prof. Manfred Stolte of Germany talked about the Histopathology of gastric cancer, Prof. Sanren Lin of China talked about an eight-year follow-up study of gastric cancer, Prof. SK Lam of Hong Kong, China talked about the Eradication of gastric cancer, and Prof. Hiroyuki Ono of Japan talked about the techniques of endoscopic submucosal resection of gastric caner. With the afternoon session goes, there comes the second scientific highlight of the day, the Young Investigators’ Awards competition, during which 12 young competitors took part, and the best papers from the young investigators were presented.

The two and half day session of Live Demonstration of digestive endoscopy constributes to another highlight of this Congress. There are altogether 20 demonstrators from both home and abroad were invited, among which, eminent Professors like Prof. Robert Hawes of USA, Prof. Nib Soehendra of Germany, Prof. Augus Chan from Hong Kong, China, Prof. Chan Sup Shim of Korea, and Prof. Hironori Yamamoto of Japan are all included.

The Congress was concluded after the Presidential Paper Awards, which is considered to be the last scientific highlight of the Congress, during which 12 presidential papers selected from over 1300 submitted papers were presented, and 6 were given the awards.

In summary, there were over 150 faculties both from home and abroad were invited, 119 invited lectures were delivered on GI diseases, hepatology, endoscopy and surgery in the APDW2004 Congress, among which 11 were State-of-the-Art Lectures delivered by different well-known professors. The event was well organized and run smoothly on both the academic and logistic level.