Skills Learning Centres
Roll up your sleeves, attend the Skills Learning Centre sessions! These hands on courses will improve your practical skills in a variety of fields!
Skills Learning Centre on Variceal Bleeding
Organisers:
- Mario Capasso
- Raoel Maan
- Tomas Hucl
- Hannah Van Malenstein
Description:
This skills learning centre aims to showcase the most common endosocpic interventions performed in hepatology. Endoscopy plays a fundamental role in the management of patients with all types of liver disease.
Additionally, both the fields of hepatology and endoscopy have become very specialised and thus a thorough knowledge of the indications, findings, therapeutic possibilities and complications that arise from endoscopic interventions are of key importance for the hepatologist.
The skills centre will offer a hands on experience with common and also novel endoscopic methods: band ligation, cyanoacrylate injection, esophageal stents for the management of varices and portal hypertension.
Learning Objectives:
- How to mount band ligators
- How to perform variceal banding for treatment of active bleeding and varices eradication
- How to perform glue injection for gastric varices
- How to mount ELLA stent and how to release the stent
Skills Learning Centre on Abdominal Sonography (in collaboration with EFSUMB)
Organisers:
- Annalisa Berzigotti
- Rob de Knegt
- Horia Stefanescu
Description:
The goal is to introduce hepatologists to ultrasonography as a versatile, multiparametric, point-of-care tool that plays a crucial role in the diagnosis and prognostic assessment of liver diseases. By integrating ultrasound into everyday practice, clinicians can gain valuable real-time insights into liver conditions, improving both diagnostic accuracy and patient management outcomes.
Whether you’re a beginner or an advanced user, this is your chance to sharpen your skills on state-of-the-art ultrasound machines. You’ll practice scanning live healthy models and tackle complex liver and biliary disease cases using cutting-edge simulators. With expert tutors guiding you in small groups of no more than three per device, you’ll receive focused, personalised coaching to take your ultrasound expertise to the next level. Don’t miss this thrilling opportunity to master the latest in hepatology imaging!
Learning Objectives:
- To identify the anatomical structures involved in liver diseases
- liver segmentation; spleen; gallbladder and bile ducts; vascular structures: portal, splenic and superior mesenteric veins, IVC and hepatic veins, hepatic and splenic arteries; peritoneal fluid accumulation sites.
- To learn about vascular examination techniques
- color and pulse Doppler; non-Doppler techniques
- To learn about other information that you can collect using multiparametric ultrasound (liver fat quantification, liver and spleen stiffness measurement)
Skills Learning Centre on Liver and Spleen Elastography
Organisers:
- Louise Campbell
- Bart Takkenberg
Description:
The utility of Vibration-controlled Transient Elastography (VCTE) progressively increased over the last decade. Created at first as a non-invasive tool to assess liver fibrosis, VCTE is nowadays used not only as a diagnostic but more importantly as a prognostic instrument in clinical practice.
At the liver and spleen stiffness skills learning centre:
- a short presentation will be provided to all the attendees to discover the utilities and the updates on the use of VCTE.
- multiple tutors will introduce the attendees to the practical use of VCTE, specifically on how to detect Liver Stiffness, how to use CAP and how to detect Spleen stiffness.
- attendees will have the possibility of using the different devices themselves with the help of the tutors.
Learning objectives:
- To be able to perform and to interpret the results of liver stiffness by VCTE to role-in and role-out advanced fibrosis: how to use the machine, how to read the elastogram, how to recognise pitfalls and how to apply these results in clinical practice.
- To choose the best probe to be used according to the patient (S for pediatric, M for non-obese patients, XL for obese patients)
- To be able to integrate the liver elastogram with the non-invasive diagnosis of steatosis by the use of CAP, useful in patients with metabolic-associated liver disease and with a deeper impact on the prognosis of patients with liver disease etiology other than metabolic
- To provide a prognostic stratification of patients by integrating the liver stiffness with spleen stiffness measured by the new dedicated spleen probe to assess the risk of liver-related (portal hypertension-mediated) complications.
Skills Learning Centre on Liver Hemodynamics (HVPG, Transjugular liver biopsy, TIPS)
Organisers:
- Vincenzo La Murra
- Wim Laleman
- Peter Minko
- Irene Bargellini
Description:
This year’s hands-on session on hepatic hemodynamics will focus on:
- Hepatic venous pressure gradient (HVPG) measurement
- Transjugular liver biopsy
- Transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS) placement
- EUS-guided portal pressure measurement+ concept of EUS-guided liver biopsy.
Participants will :
- Discuss the role of these interventions in patient management with experts in the field
- Obtain practical skills
Learning objectives:
- Increase the knowledge of minimally invasive diagnostic (HVPG, tranjsugular liver biopsy, EUS-guided portal pressure measurement and biopsy) and therapeutic techniques (TIPS)
- Review the indications/contraindications of these methods
- Learn in detail the technical aspects of these techniques (including also the characteristics of the electronic chart for a realiable measurement)
- Exchange experiences with tutors and more experienced attendees
Skills Learning Centre: Basic Science Wet Lab
Organisers:
- Rui Castro
- Saskia van Mil
- Kristof van Avondt
Description:
Unlock the power of spatial biology and gain hands-on experience in this exclusive basic science wet lab at the EASL Congress 2025. Designed for researchers and clinicians eager to explore the liver’s complex microenvironment, this interactive session will demonstrate cutting-edge spatial proteomics technology to visualise and analyse hepatic cellular architecture with unprecedented depth.
Guided by expert instructors, participants will work with liver samples to perform high-content imaging and multiplex protein analysis, gaining insights into cell-cell interactions, zonation patterns, and disease-specific alterations. Whether you are investigating liver fibrosis, hepatocellular carcinoma, or immune responses, mastering spatial biology techniques will elevate your research.
Who Should Attend?
This session is ideal for researchers, clinicians and early-career scientists interested in liver biology, spatial transcriptomics/proteomics, and advanced imaging technologies.
Join us for this immersive wet lab experience and take your liver research to the next level with spatial biology!
Learning Objectives:
- Understand the principles and applications of spatial biology in liver research
- Learn how to prepare and process liver tissue samples for high-multiplex imaging
- Gain hands-on experience using the MACSima™ Platform for spatial proteomics analysis
- Interpret multiplexed imaging data to explore hepatic microenvironments in health and disease
- Discuss potential research applications and future directions for spatial biology in hepatology
Skills Learning Centre: Pathology
Organisers:
- Valerie Paradis
- Johanna Verheij
- Michail Doukas
Description:
The role of histology in liver diseases has undergone major changes in the past decade, both in the context of inflammatory liver diseases and primary liver tumours. Clinical tests, non-invasive techniques and imaging improved for diagnosis and staging of liver diseases and liver tumours. Indications for liver biopsy changed and, consequently, the number of liver biopsies decreased. When a liver biopsy is considered for diagnostic and/or treatment strategy purposes, the major question is the benefit of the information obtained from the biopsy, including its added value compared to non-invasive tests and clinical context. These considerations are the main focus of this skills lab during which ‘real life’ cases will be discussed. The session will be brought together in a multi-speciality team format with discussion of complex cases and highlights of the main learning objectives: both tumour and inflammatory biopsies will be tackled from a clinical point of view and from the perspective of the pathologist focusing on criteria for diagnosis, possible pitfalls and therapeutic consequences. During this skills lab, cases will be prepared within small groups with 2 tutors per group (hepatologist and pathologist), followed by plenary discussion of the cases.
Learning Objectives:
- The added value of a liver biopsy in relation to non-invasive tests both in the context of inflammatory liver diseases and liver tumours.
- The importance of the clinicopathological correlation for optimal benefit of a liver biopsy, including the importance of the multidisciplinary approach for correct diagnosis and management of patients
- The future of pathology: new perspectives
