22 March, 2016

Dr Sara De Matteis, together with Professor Torben Sigsgaard of Aarhus University and Professor Dick Heederik of the University of Utrecht, organised a 2-day European Respiratory Society (ERS) Environment and Health Committee Workshop, at the Thon Hotel EU, Brussels, Belgium, 22-23 March 2016.  This was entitled 'Current and new challenges in occupational lung diseases. Where do we stand? What are the needs?'.

Several international speakers - all leaders in the field of occupational respiratory diseases - attended, including Paul Cullinan, who gave a talk on ‘Which occupational respiratory diseases will we see in a future Europe? The clinical perspective’.

The meeting was very successful; also considering the distress caused by the terrorist bomb attack in the nearby Metro station. The results of the Workshop discussion will lead to an ERS statement paper which will be published in the ERJ journal.