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As you amy be award, Tripartite colorectal meetings are held every three years. These meetings welcome healthcare professionals from all over the world. The next Tripartite Colorectal meeting will be from Nov. 9-12, 2020 in Auckland, New Zealand.

The Tripartite 2020 Vision Research Prioritization Committee is working to build international collaborations in research, with patients as our partners. It has been funded by the Bowel Disease Research Foundation and will guide future research projects. This project aims to develop a mutual and internationally relevant research agenda in colorectal surgery, based on shared professional and patient priorities.

The Committee is interested in learning about your research priorities. Please complete the survey: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/Tripartite2020Vision and indicate which research questions you consider important. You may nominate up to five (5) research questions with this survey and may take it again as often as you like to a maximum of ten (10) questions per participant. The questions will then be voted on by the worldwide colorectal community, patients, and the public to select our research priorities. All research questions submitted will be anonymous.

The Tripartite 2020 Vision Research Prioritisation launched on August 13, 2018 and is supported by all Tripartite organizations including ASCRS. The initial survey will remain open until October 28, 2018.

Sincerely,
Tripartite 2020 Vision Research Prioritization Committee

Transanal Total Mesorectal Excision (taTME) is a novel minimally invasive surgical approach for the treatment of rectal cancer. Since the first taTME clinical report in 2009, the approach has been adopted increasingly worldwide. While preliminary outcomes of taTME are encouraging, they are limited to case series and one international registry.

The US Multicenter Study of taTME for rectal cancer opened for enrollment in May 2017 (clinicaltrials.gov NCT03144765). This is a 5-year Phase II clinical trial investigating taTME with laparoscopic or robotic assistance in patients with resectable rectal cancer and who are eligible for sphincter preservation.

The trial is led by Patricia Sylla, MD at Mount Sinai Hospital and is funded in part by a generous grant from the Research Foundation of the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons (RF ASCRS). For more information, please visit the taTME Multicenter Study web page.

As many of you may know, on April 11, 2019, Ethicon notified all U.S. customers they were initiating a voluntary recall of specific lots of Ethicon manual circular staplers, Intraluminal Stapler (ILS). This decision was based on an increase in the rare occurrence of the device having insufficient firing stroke to break the washer and completely form staples. This recall does not impact any of Ethicon’s other surgical staplers or other products.

The U.S. FDA classified the ILS Proximate Circular Stapler recall as Class I on May 15, 2019. The FDA has confirmed its alignment of Ethicon’s approach in handling this recall.

Ethicon has assured us their top priority is to return supply of this critical product. They expect to start shipping product during early June. Additionally, Ethicon is increasing production of their ECHELON CIRCULAR™ Powered Staplers to help reduce the impact of limited overall supply of circular staplers in the market.

The safety of our patients is a priority for both ASCRS and Ethicon. We will continue to inform you of updates on this issue.

As of June 4, 2019, Ethicon is shipping manual circular staplers, Intraluminal Stapler (ILS), through their distribution channels. Hospitals in the U.S. can expect to start receiving product within the next week. Ethicon’s top priority has been to return supply of this critical product as quickly as possible.

On April 11, 2019, Ethicon notified all U.S. customers they were initiating a voluntary recall of specific lots of Ethicon manual circular staplers, Intraluminal Stapler (ILS). This decision was based on an increase in the rare occurrence of the device having insufficient firing stroke to break the washer and completely form staples. This recall does not impact any of Ethicon’s other surgical staplers or other products.

The safety of our patients is a priority for both ASCRS and Ethicon. We will continue to inform you of updates on this issue.

The ASCRS 2016 Annual Meeting app is now available to download in the iTunes Store and Google Play.

The app allows meeting attendees to easily access annual meeting information directly from their smartphones or tablets. Attendees can create their own schedules in advance and download it into their calendars so they don't miss any important meetings or sessions, which they can search by CME and self-assessment (MOC) credits.

The app also allows them to connect through social media, so they can tweet about the sessions they attend with the hashtag #ASCRS16.