Welcome Message President of AAFITN 2023 -2025

Welcome message from the President of Asian-Australian Federation Of Interventional and Therapeutic Neuroradiology (AAFITN) 2023 -2025

 Greetings from AAFITN!

On behalf of the council members of the Asian-Australian Federation Of Interventional and Therapeutic Neuroradiology (AAFITN), I would like to extend our warm greetings for the term of 2023 -2025.

We had a very exciting meeting from 13^th to 15^th October 2023  in Hong Kong by organizing chairman Prof George Wong and Dr William W.L. Poon, President of the Hong Kong Society of Interventional and Therapeutic Neuroradiology (HKSITN). We had a great time catching up not only in professional and academic but
seeing each other after the pandemic.

This brought back nostalgic thoughts and I was reminded by the history of AAFITN. It was founded in 1994 and the main objective was to promote the practice of Interventional and theurapeutic Neuroradiology in Asian-Australasian by organizing scientific meetings in the region to learn and exchange ideas from each other.
The founding president was LING Feng and the first meeting was held in Beijing , China in 1994.

This was followed by the following meetings chairpersons;

2^nd meeting 1996- Beijing, China by LING Feng.
3^rd meeting 2000- Sendai Japan by Akira TAKAHASHI
4^th meeting 2001- Seoul, South Korea by Dong I. KIM
5^th meeting 2002-Hong Kong by John KWOK
6^th meeting 2004 – Bangkok, Thailand by Suthisak SUTHIPONGCHAI
7^th meeting 2006- Goa, India by Anil KARAPURKAR.
8^th meeting 2008 -Taipeh, Taiwan  by Michael Mu Huo TENG
9^th meeting 2010- Melbourne, Australia by Winston CHONG
10^th meeting 2012- Nagoya, Japan by Shigeru MIYACHI
11^th meeting 2014- Danang, Vietnam by Cuong Tran Chi
12^th meeting 2016- Bali, Indonesia by Priyo  SIDIPRATOMA
14^th meeting 2018- Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia by Jeyaledchumy MAHADEVAN
15^th meeting 2020- Seoul Korea Byung Moon KIM
16^th meeting 2023- Hong Kong George WONG


The cycle of the conference was disrupted by the Covid 19 and now the meeting is on odd years. Despite the Covis 19 pandemic we still went ahead with the meeting in Seoul being hybrid. Our first face to face meeting was in Hong Kong and it was a pleasure to meet up with everyone after a long time!

We now must be in the normal mode and hopefully all stay heathy and well. I personally feel we must take every opportunity to continue our journey in this field one way or another and contribute towards building this beautiful field of INR.

I encourage all to take advantage of the informal networking opportunities we have to build neurointervention in the region and your own country. I am most concern about the stroke treatment where many countries in Asia are facing challenges in term of finances for treatment.

While the successful countries have gone ahead with this treatment by leaps and bounds, I hope they can find solutions to the funding of treatment. With younger age group presenting with stroke and more so in females it is a real concern. I am hoping AAFITN can facilitate training and bonding with the industry to support these countries. Even though the mechanical thrombectomy has level 1 evidence it is the finances that remains the stumbling challenges. I hope we can all work together to do our best for Stroke as it is going to be a financial burden not only to the families but to the countries and nations.

The numeration needs to be worked out with the legislatives of each country by presenting the network and financial long-term benefits to the local administration

I also would like to take the opportunity here to welcome our newer member countries Nepal and Sri Lanka and hopefully the training will continue around Asia on a larger scale. I hope each of these members will come forward to perhaps bring up their challenges and their victories in addressing the stroke challenges.

It is also wonderful to see the industry coming forth to support and we look forward to improving on the training initiatives with their support.

I would like to thank all the AAFITN council members who have worked to finally register and open the account in Australia. Special thanks to Shigeru Miyachi and Winson Choong for facilitating that exercise.

Also, I would like to thank Cuong Tran Chi for the website work and hopefully all can keep connected through this platform not only to discuss cases, and work related matters but to bond and continue our friendship within the region and extend it worldwide as AAFITN is part of the WFITN as a true federation.

I look forward to a wonderful next meeting, 16th  in Bangkok, Thailand and hope to see all of you soon.