The 12nd Annual Meeting of Society of Gastrointestinal Intervention (SGI) was held from October 19th to 20th, 2018 at the International Youth Convention Hotel, Nanjing, China. Over 500 peer physicians from all over the world and the country attend the grand academic assembly. Remarkably, this is the first time the SGI annual meeting being held outside of Korea since its establishment. The three-day conference was themed with "digestive tract tumor intervention", and experts from the interventional, digestive and minimally invasive surgery departments of various countries jointly discussed the joint operation of "multiple arms", focusing on the latest international breakthrough in the field of minimally invasive interventional treatment of digestive tract tumors.

　　This grand international academic event was hosted by SGI, co-hosted by Zhongda Hospital Southeast University. It was chaired by DongKi Lee, president of SGI, and executively co-chaired by: Gaojun Teng, chairman of Chinese College of Interventionalists and president of Zhongda Hospital; Ruihua Shi, director of Institute of Digestive Disease Southeast University; and Zhenling Ji, president of Zhongda Hospital Lishui branch.

　　Dr. DongKi Lee expressed his gratitude to Zhongda Hospital for making it possible to hold the first SGI outside of Korea. Founded in 2007, the SGI aims to maximize interdisciplinary collaborations, share technological innovations, foster future specialists, and become a role model as a unique international meeting in the field of gastrointestinal (GI) interventions. The SGI meetings having been annually held in Korea for the past 10 years, this is the first time SGI meeting being held outside of Korea, and Nanjing will be a very symbolic city in the history of SGI.

　　SGI is a multidisciplinary international society that was born with the concept of developing effective treatments for patients suffering from difficult-to-resolve GI diseases through a multi-disciplinary approach. Over the years, it has overcome many difficulties and obstacles, thanks to the dedication and fervent support from many opinion leaders all over the world who shared the same idea. The mission and vision are to develop GI interventions through cooperation and good competition between departments and contribute to humanity. The hope is for everyone here to enjoy the academic feast.

　　Professor Gaojun Teng, executive chairman of the conference, said the SGI society had been a great success over the past 11 years. The SGI meeting travels overseas for the first time since SGI was founded in 2007, and it was known for its multidisciplinary platform of interventional radiology, digestive endoscopy and minimally invasive surgery. The organizing committee of Nanjing SGI 2018 has been actively preparing for the event, which was conducted in Nanjing on schedule with the close cooperation and guidance of SGI society. The SGI 2018 organizing committee thanks the distinguished professors, colleagues and all attendees for their outstanding contributions and academic support to the conference.

　　This conference gathered academic masters discussing international frontier topics. Meeting sessions are themed by diseases, involving gastrointestinal tumors, liver, pancreatic biliary, digestive tract stent, tumor ablation, hemorrhage, thrombosis; experts in interventional radiology, digestive endoscopy, minimally invasive surgery and other multi-disciplinary experts focused on different benign and malignant gastrointestinal tumors in clinical practice and research innovation of multidisciplinary study.

　　This conference is rich in content and diverse in form, with themed lectures, interactive sessions, hand-on workshops and operation training. More than 30 live surgical operations were broadcast live globally in six different medical centers in the United States, Britain, China, Spain, India and South Korea.

　　Zhongda Hospital, as one of the organizers of the conference, has made elaborate arrangements and detailed services for the conference. The ZHDH professional team shone at the meeting: ZHDH’s president Dr. Gaojun Teng reported on support technology of iodine 125 particles; director of intervention and vascular surgery Dr. Jinhe Guo, Dr. Shicheng He, Dr. Deng Gang, Dr. Haidong Zhu, Dr. Guangyu Zhu, Dr. Zhibin Bai, director of digestive internal medicine Dr.Ruihua Shi, director of the general surgery Dr. Zhenling Ji, Dr. Hong Chen, Dr. Xin Shi, Dr. Junsheng Li, Dr. Qingsong Tao, director of oncology Dr. Cailian Wang etc are involved in lectures and hand-on workshop sessions. The excellent performance of ZHDH team perfectly presents the comprehensive strength and academic level of ZHDH.

　　This conference was held in China for the first time, which fully shows that China is not inferior to other countries in the field of minimally invasive treatment of gastrointestinal tumors..As the organizer of the conference, ZHDH plays an important role in promoting social visibility and international influence and accelerating the internationalization and scientific development of the hospital.Multi-disciplinary experts from all over the world gathered here to share the new frontier of treatment and further promote the integration and development of digestive intervention into a new journey.