Dear friends:

The second World Congress of Total Intravenous Anaesthesia - TCI was recently held in Berlin on April 23 - 25, 2009 with 656 delegates from 65 countries.

Already, a month has passed since the Berlin meeting. The success of the meeting exceeded all our expectations and I think we can truly consider this to have been an exceptional Congress. Words cannot express my gratitude to those of you who gave so much of your time in the preparation for the Congress together with your fantastic input during the many presentations.

The number of e-mails I have received from registered participants have been surprising, all praising the scientific quality of the meeting. A worldwide movement has truly begun. I thank you all.

At the opening ceremony, Professor Steven Shafer (Columbia) awarded our inaugural "Innovator's Award" to Prof J. Shuttler and Prof H. Schwilden for their early work in the field of intravenous anaesthesia and target controlled infusions.

This was followed by two excellent presentations; the first by Prof J. Shuttler on the history of TCI and the second by Dan Schultz  of the FDA.  A welcome reception followed ... and so began our World Congress in the wonderful city of Berlin.

We were delighted by the high number of abstracts submitted for both poster and oral presentation by individuals and groups from all over the world. At the close of the meeting, it was with great pleasure that we were able to award the "Best Poster" to Erik Olofsen (Leiden University Medical Center, The Netherlands) for his presentation exploring the possibility of providing a TCI device not only with a pharmacokinetic model to predict blood concentrations, but also with an indicator of the variability in those predictions that may be expected. 

Finally, many thanks to our sponsors for their support of the Second World Congress of TIVA-TCI in Berlin 2009.

Heartfelt thanks again!

Quirino Piacevoli
President, WorldSIVA