History
The early years of ESVONC
(based on the archives of the ESVIM/ECVIM newsletters, and various testimonies from Erik Teske, Martin Kessler, Malcolm Brearley, Janos Butinar, and Henrik Rönnberg)
WrittenbyErik Teske, former ESVIM newsletter editor and early member of ESVONC, and Gerard Rutteman, first membership secretary of ESVONC, and edited by Jérôme Benoit, current President of ESVONC.
In the late 70’s, scientists, active in the field of Veterinary and Comparative Oncology, formed a working group, to set up a TNM Classification System of tumors in domestic animals. The participants were: Dr R.S. Brodey, Philadelphia, USA; Dr E.L. Gillette, Colorado, USA; Dr V.N. Milouchine, Geneva, Switzerland; Dr W. Misdorp, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Dr L.N. Owen, Cambridge, United Kingdom; Dr A.-L. Parodi, Alfort, France; Dr A.B. Syrkin, Moscow, USSR; Dr G.H. Theilen, Davis, California, USA. The work was edited by LN Owen and published in 1980.
Inspired by this previous initiatives, and by VCS already in existence in the USA, a discussion by fax, led to the initiative by scientists working in veterinary oncology to create the European Society of Veterinary Oncology. In the ESVIM Newsletter Vol 2, No 2, 1992, p24 an announcement was made that a Steering Committee had been formed. The objective of the society were presented. It was further planed that there would be scientific meetings once every two yeaers and a newsletter.
Click here to open the entry from 1992.
Erik Teske, Wim Misdorp and Gerard Rutteman
The Steering Committee prepared a Constitution and an Inaugural Meeting was organized during 2nd ESVIM Meeting (parallel to WSAVA World congress) at the Cavalierie Hilton Hotel, in Rome on September 24, 1992. During that meeting the people present voted for the Constitution and Misdorp (President), Gorman (Vice-president), Rutteman (Secretary), Hellmén (Treasurer), Rossi (Meeting secretary), Ponomarkow (member), and Parodi (Member) were elected as the first officers of ESVONC. Dr Malcolm Brearley became editor of the Newsletter. It was also decided that the International Conference on Spontaneous Animal Tumours, held in November 1993 in Genoa, would be co-organized by ESVONC. As an annual fee the sum of 30 ECU was determined. The formal (legal) registration (KVK of the society (at Notary in Utrecht, NL), with Statutes and By-laws was in 1993.
In the early years of ESVONC, Annual Meetings took place during the ESVIM congresses, which later became the ECVIM-CA congresses. Usually, a two-day program was made. Also joined sessions with other Societies were organized. The first one was in Cambridge together with the ESVNU. The ESVONC newsletter was at the time incorporated into the ESVIM newsletter.
The membership of ESVONC was in those days not open for everyone. Full membership was open to those who were interested in veterinary oncology and who possessed an academic degree AND have worked actively in cancer research for at least one year. The General Meeting ruled on the admittance of full members.
On December 31, 1996 ESVONC had 54 registered members. In 1999 the first joint meeting of ESVONC and VCS was organized in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, November 13-16. However, only a very few European ESVONC members were present (including the colleagues Gerard Rutteman, Miriam Kleiter, Daniela Simon and Erik Teske) and it was absolutely not felt by our American colleagues as a joint meeting. Also, during the WSAVA congress in Amsterdam in April 2000, a joined precongress day on Oncology was organized by both VCS and ESVONC.
In January 2001 a new Executive Committee was elected by postal vote. David Argyle became the new President, Barabara Kaser-Hotz the Vice-President, and J Martin de Las Mulas as Member. One year later, January 2002, the first Interim ESVONC meeting was organized in Zurich, after which Interim Spring meetings became routine. In that very year Honorary Membership was bestowed on Wim Misdorp and André Parodi for their contributions to comparative and veterinary oncology.
During the 11th Annual Meeting of ESVONC it was decided to have the new Veterinary Comparative Oncology Journal as the official journal of ESVONC. Barbara Kaser-Hotz became the new President and Martin Kessler the new Vice-President. In 2004, Eva Hellmén became the next President and Johan de Vos became treasurer and membership secretary. In addition, the present logo was elected from a few alternatives (see below).
That year, the first ESVONC meeting, independent from the ECVIM-CA, was hosted by Martin Kessler, in Hofheim, Germany, in a seminar room, at the basement of Martin Kessler’s previous hospital. A certain cultural shift (or « revolution ») started to take place at the time, with a more diverse group of clinicians and non-clinicians, academics and non-academics, sharing a profound interest for oncology. This meeting is considered by many to be the foundation meeting of our Society as we know it today.
« the happy and beautiful crowd » at the Hofheim ESVONC Meeting, 7th-8th February 2004
In 2005 the number of ESVONC members approached the 100. Between 28th February – 1st March 2008, the second “First” joined meeting of ESVONC and VCS was held in Copenhagen. More than 200 participants and exhibitors from 24 countries registered to the meeting. During that year Malcolm Brearley became the next ESVONC president. In the mean time the spring ESVONC meeting grew and grew. In 2009 some 160 veterinarians attended the congress in Visegrad, Hungary. In that very same year also some sad news was received. The Honorary member Wim Misdorp had passed away at the age of 80. To honour is Memory and his contribution to science it was decided to name the ESVONC Junior Research Award the Wim Misdorp Award.
As more and more practitioners who were interested in veterinary oncology became member of ESVONC, and under the influence of Johan de Vos, Malcolm Brearley and Martin Kessler, it was felt that the Constitution needed to be updated. Thus, the constitution was revised and the prerequisite that a member should have had at least one year experience in cancer research was deleted in 2009.
That year, a memorandum was signed between VCS (with Barbara Kitchell as President) and ESVONC, which paved the way for the current 4-yearly cycles. On 2012, the second WVCC was organised by ESVONC, in Paris and appeared to be a huge success.
Since that time, ESVONC has continued growing, becoming more inclusive and attracting members from all around Europe and more globally. We, ESVONC members, shall be grateful and thankful for the passion and hard work our founders have used to create ESVONC and make ESVONC the community it has become today.
Happy 30th Anniversary ESVONC!
Click on the image to open the ESVONC History Presentation!