World Ophthalmology Congress 2008 in Hong Kong

Abstract

The World Ophthalmology Congress 2008 was sponsored by the International Council of Ophthalmology, hosted by the College of Ophthalmologists of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Ophthalmological Society, and co-hosted by the Asia Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology and the Chinese Ophthalmological Society. The World Ophthalmology Congress 2008 was held in conjunction with the 31st International Congress of Ophthalmology, the 23rd Congress of Asia Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology, the 13th Congress of Chinese Ophthalmological Society and the 20th Hong Kong Ophthalmological Symposium. World Ophthalmology Congress 2008 was attended by over 13,300 delegates and exhibitors from more than 100 countries, with over 3000 participants coming from the People’s Republic of China. The Congress was supported by over 150 corporate partners from more than 22 countries. The strength of any scientific congress lies in the quality of the scientific program. The Scientific Program Committee of the World Ophthalmology Congress 2008 was chaired by Steve Ryan. Under his able leadership, a 5-day scientific program in 18 subspecialty areas was staged, with over 1100 prominent, international speakers presenting in 319 scientific sessions, many of them organized by more than 40 international, supranational, national and subspecialty ophthalmologic societies. In addition, there were also three subspecialty day programs in Cataract and Refractive Surgery, Glaucoma and Retina, a World Ophthalmic Education Colloquium and a Chinese program organized by the Chinese Ophthalmological Society. The submitted scientific program included over 170 free paper presentations, over 3700 poster presentations and more than 100 video presentations.