primary prevention of coeliac disease - Associazione Italiana ...

Foreward
It is a great honour for me to introduce the Proceedings of the Meeting on Coeliac
Disease that was held in Pavia on October 12, 2001.
First of all, I would like to thank and to remind the memory of Mr. Sergio Spinelli, a
man who strongly wanted and appreciated this meeting during its organization, who
unfortunately passed just a few months before the event took place.
I would also like to thank Prof. Corazza and Dr. Catassi for their hard work and
collaboration during the organization of the scientific programme and for selecting the
most important scientists who participated as speakers and chairmen.
Finally, I cannot forget Mrs. Marina Marengo, Mrs. Katia Pilo and the whole
editorial staff, especially Mr. Franco Lucchesi and Mrs. Giusy Cappellotto, for
professionally organizing the whole meeting and preparing all the informative material,
including this book.
The Meeting held in Pavia was one of the most important scientific events on
coeliac disease that have ever been organized, not only in Italy but also in Europe.
The Italian Coeliac Society (AIC) has always given a strong support to research and
felt it was time to organize a meeting for giving an up to date on the most important
recent findings on coeliac disease, both in Italy and other countries.
The aim of doing this was twofold: (a) to evaluate the level of the current knowledge
on the main aspects of coeliac disease by comparing different scientific working groups
and (b) to identify the possible topics on which the research should be focused on in the
next future. Should these goals be reached, the life of the coeliacs will be easier
wherever.
I think that the quality level of both the speakers and the audience allowed to entirely
achieve these aims.
Adriano Pucci
President of the AIC
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