EFP to stage Perio Master Clinic in Hong Kong in 2019

The EFP is planning to hold a Perio Master Clinic in Hong Kong in March 2019 in partnership with the Hong Kong Society of Periodontology and Implant Dentistry, as it seeks to strengthen its engagement to support worldwide periodontal health.

The Hong Kong Perio Master Clinic, due to take place on March 1 and 2, 2019, will be chaired by Maurizio Tonetti, editor of the EFP’s Journal of Clinical Periodontology, who is clinical professor of periodontology at the University of Hong Kong, and who first proposed the idea of the event.

Dr. Stanley Man Lung Lai (University of Hong Kong) will chair the local organising committee, while the scientific chair will be Prof Stefan Renvert (Kristianstad University, Sweden) and the event will be organised by the EFP’s professional conference organiser Mondial Congress & Events. The subject of the clinic will be peri-implantitis, which will be explored by international experts.

The Hong Kong master clinic will be the third such event organised by the EFP, following those in Paris in 2014 (“Peri-implant plastic and reconstructive surgery) and Malta in March 2017 (“Peri-implantitis: from aetiology to treatment”). The next Perio Master Clinic is due to take place in Dublin in 2020, where the proposed topic is “Challenging paradigms in hard- and soft-tissue reconstruction.”

The plan to proceed with the Hong Kong project was approved by the EFP’s executive committee at a meeting in Frankfurt on October 14.

“The EFP Master Clinic in Hong Kong is a key event to build bridges and strengthen professional ties between Asia and Europe,” said Prof Tonetti. “The EFP is looking at Asia to support cultural exchange and the efforts of Asian colleagues to bring better periodontal health in this part of the world. I am delighted to serve this objective.”

Prof Renvert added that a growing proportion of the adult population is treated with dental implants to replace lost teeth, with recent literature suggesting that as many as one in five individuals with implants will – within 10 years – develop advanced infections at their dental implants, sometimes resulting in a need to eliminate the implant.

“An important part of the EFP’s mission to spread knowledge in how to prevent and treat any diseases at dental implants,” he said. “The Master Clinic in Hong Kong will therefore focus on preventive strategies and treatment modalities for peri-implant diseases.”

EFP secretary general Iain Chapple, described the Hong Kong master clinic as “a key component in the EFP’s mission to serve periodontal health and to be a resource for periodontal societies and clinicians worldwide.”

The Hong Kong master clinic is an example of the federation’s globalisation agenda, recently explained by Prof Chapple in the Autumn/Winter 2017 edition of the biannual bulletin EFP News, in which he described the EFP as “the global opinion leader on all issues relating to periodontal health and dental implants.”