Keywords

Since 1986, ten international consensus meetings on portal hypertension have been held. After the first organized in Groningen, the Netherlands, by Andrew Burroughs [1], the other nine took place in Baveno in 1990 (Baveno I) [2] and 1995 (Baveno II) [3, 4], in Milan in 1992 [5], in Reston, USA in 1996 [6], in Stresa in 2000 (Baveno III) [7, 8], again in Baveno in 2005 (Baveno IV) [9, 10], in Atlanta, USA in 2007 [11] and again in Stresa in 2010 (Baveno V) [12, 13], and Baveno in 2015 (Baveno VI) [14, 15]. This is the 11th meeting of this kind, the seventh with the name of Baveno.

Baveno I to VI

Attendance at the Baveno Workshops

The attendance to the Baveno workshops was 205 in Baveno I, 252 in Baveno II, 385 in Baveno III, 485 in Baveno IV, 314 in Baveno V, 243 in Baveno VI, and 509 in Baveno VII. The proportion of international participants rose steadily from 19% in Baveno I to 87% in Baveno VII. The countries represented rose from 18 in Baveno I to 50 in Baveno V and VII.

Publications Derived from the Baveno Workshops

Reports of the Baveno workshops have been published in the Journal of Hepatology in 1992 [2] (Baveno I), in 1996 [3] (Baveno II), in 2000 [7] (Baveno III), in 2005 [9] (Baveno IV), in 2010 [12] (Baveno V), and 2015 (Baveno VI) [14]. Starting from Baveno II, the proceeding books of the workshops were published by Blackwell Science in 1996 [4] and 2001 [8], by Blackwell Publications in 2006 [10], by Wiley-Blackwell in 2011 [13], and by Springer in 2016 [15].

Impact of the Baveno Consensus on the Medical Literature

Figure 1.1 shows the number of citations of the Baveno I–VI consensus reports in the medical literature between January 1993 and October 22nd, 2021. Overall, the reports had 4395 citations. The number of citations more than doubled between 2015 and 2021.

Fig. 1.1
A bar graph of the citations of Baveno reports 1 to 6. Y and X axes represent N superscipt 0, and Baveno reports respectively. Totally 4395 citations are present. Baveno1 has a bar height of 243, baveno 2 has a height of 119, baveno 3 has a height of 477, baveno 4 has a height of 907, baveno 5 has a height of 1043, and 6 has a height of 1606.

Citations of the Baveno reports I to VI (data from Scopus 22.10.2021)

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The Baveno workshop’s proceeding books were also highly successful. As an example, the Baveno VI consensus proceedings book: “Portal Hypertension VI: expanding consensus in portal hypertension” received more than 40,000-chapter downloads from 2016 to 2021.

Validation of the Baveno Definitions and Recommendations

The validity of the definitions and recommendations proposed at each Baveno workshop underwent verification in the following years. In this respect, Baveno VI was no exception. As an example, at Baveno VI new criteria for ruling out the presence of high-risk varices (HRV) in patients with compensated advanced chronic liver disease (cACLD) by noninvasive means were proposed (the so-called Baveno VI criteria). These criteria stated that cACLD patients with a liver stiffness (measured by transient elastography) of <20 kPa and a platelet count of >150,000/mm3 had a < 5% risk of having HRV, and thus could avoid undergoing screening endoscopy. If proven true, these criteria would have important clinical implications, since avoiding endoscopy in patients fulfilling the Baveno VI criteria would significantly decrease the burden of endoscopy units. In the years between 2016 and 2021, more than 30 studies were carried out to test the validity of the Baveno VI criteria. A metanalysis published in this book [16] showed that the cumulative negative predictive value of the Baveno VI criteria to exclude the presence of HRV was 0.99, and that the proportion of saved endoscopies ranged between 8% and 60% in the different studies.

Beyond Baveno VII, the Baveno Cooperation

Inspired by the friendly atmosphere of the Baveno meetings, the Baveno Cooperation was launched in 2016 with the aim of creating a permanent network of research groups involved in the organization of the Baveno workshops, to take advantage of the many relationships, personal links, and synergies created by working together over the years. Its goal is to promote the progress of research in the pathophysiology, diagnosis, noninvasive evaluation, and management of portal hypertension. In 2019, the Baveno Cooperation has been officially endorsed as an EASL Research Group. Cooperative studies carried out within the framework of the Baveno Cooperation have been presented for the first time at Baveno VII and will be published under the Baveno Cooperation umbrella as a quality mark. Along this line, several items of the research agenda presented at Baveno VII will be the topic of future Baveno Cooperation studies. We are convinced that the Baveno Cooperation will be the ideal framework to continue in the future the friendly collaboration that has always been the hallmark of the Baveno enterprise.

The Baveno I–VII Workshops Were a Concerted Effort of the Following

Speakers and Chairpersons

Argentina: J Vorobioff; Austria: G Krejs, M Mandorfer, M Peck, T Reiberger; Belgium: S Francque, W Laleman, F Nevens; Canada: J Abraldes, J Heathcote, S Ling, N Marcon, G Pomier Layrargues, P Tandon, I Wanless; China: G Han, J Jia, X Luo; Denmark: U Becker, F Bendtsen, E Christensen, C Gluud, A Krag, S Møller, TIA Sørensen; M Thiele; Egypt: G Shiha; France: L Benajiba, B Bernard-Chabert, C Bureau, P Calès, L Castéra, JJ Kiladjian, D Lebrec, R Moreau, V Paradis, JP Pascal, A Plessier, P E Rautou, M Rudler, C Silvain, D Thabut, D Valla, JP Vinel; Germany: K Binmøller, W Fleig, G Richter, C Ripoll, M Rössle, T Sauerbruch, M Schepke, D Schuppan, M Staritz, J Trebicka, A Zipprich; Great Britain: AK Burroughs, E Elias, J Fallowfield, P Hayes, J O’Beirne D Patch, D Tripathi, E Tsochatzis, D Westaby; India: YC Chawla, A Kumar, SK Sarin, A Shukla; Israel: I Gralnek; Italy: E Ancona, M Angelico, G Balducci, G Barosi, G Battaglia, M Bolognesi, L Bolondi, L Cestari, GC Caletti, V Calvaruso, F Cosentino, G D’Amico, R de Franchis, A Dell’Era, A Gatta, G Gerunda, V La Mura, A Liberati, A, Maffei Faccioli, PM Mannucci, C Merkel, M Merli, G Minoli, A Morabito, L Pagliaro, A Peracchia, S Piano, M Pinzani, M Primignani, O Riggio, P Rossi, C Sabbà, D Sacerdoti, F Salerno, F Schepis, M Senzolo, GP Spina, F Tinè, A Tripodi, L Turco, V Ziparo, M Zoli; Japan: I Yoshiji; Norway: L Aabakken; Pakistan: S Abid; Portugal: P Alexandrino; Romania: B Procopet; Spain: A Albillos, S Augustin, A Baiges, R Bañares, M Barrufet, A Cardenas, A Escorsell, JC Garcia-Pagàn, J Genescà, P Ginés, J Gracia, V Hernandez-Gea, S Lens, M Navasa, J Piqué, R Planas,, J Rodès, L Tellez, F Turon, C Villanueva; Switzerland: A Berzigotti, J Bosch, A de Gottardi, AS Gomes Rodrigues, Hadengue, P Gertsch, C Sieber, R Wiest; Sweden: C Søderlund; Taiwan: FY Lee, HC Lin, J H Lo; The Netherlands: H Janssen, F Leebeek; SD Murad, H van Buuren; U.S.A.: J Bajaj, A Blei, T Boyer, N Chalasani, M Fallon, H Ferral, R Gaba, G Garcia-Tsao, N Grace, R Groszmann, JM Henderson, Y Iwakiri, P Kamath, WR Kim, D Kravetz, L Laine, B Mittman, A Sanyal, V Shah, B Shneider, J Talwalkar, G van Stiegmann.

Organization: S Covre, A M Sorresso, D Santi, G Sabattini, ADB Eventi e Congressi.