25th World IFSO Congress

Dear IFSO Members, Dear Colleagues,

First of all, we would like to THANK YOU all very much for your continuous support and participation in IFSO's activities throughout 2020 and 2021.

It's been a very tough period for all of us. The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged our lives in each and every aspect, but the vaccine has shown us the light at the end of the tunnel.

As you know, last year we were forced to postpone the XXV IFSO World Congress to October 2021 with the hope that all our members would have been able to attend and that we could all get together again.

This hope, unfortunately, hasn't become a reality yet, but the GOOD NEWS is that travel restrictions to the USA from most of the countries will be dropped towards the end of 2021 and in some cases in early 2022.

So in order to give ALL our members the chance to attend, the IFSO leadership has decided to move the Congress to 23-27 August 2022.

All the future IFSO Congresses will be moved accordingly, so the XXVI IFSO Congress will be held in 2023 in Italy.

This was not at all an easy decision, because we were all looking forward to meeting each other again in person, after two long and difficult years.

But we really feel we have to give all our members the same opportunity. It wouldn't be a real "IFSO Congress" without members from all our five Chapters.

The program stays as it is and it will be even more interesting: ASMBS will participate with us with its two tracks, WOF and WGO will have their two sessions within our program, IFSO LAC will organize their sessions, in Spanish and Portuguese. In one word: IFSO will remain the biggest appointment for anyone working in the field of obesity surgery, and we don't want to leave anyone out!!