The Report of the Second WFNS Foundation Rabat Live Surgery Seminar for Young African Neurosurgeons

The Second WFNS Foundation Rabat Live Surgery Seminar for Young African Neurosurgeons was held in the WFNS Rabat Reference Center – Hôpital des Spécialités Rabat, Morocco, from 09th to 11th march 2017, and was coordinated by Professor A. El Ouahabi (Morocco) and Professor Y.Kato (Japan).

This year’s edition concerned the surgical treatment of intractable epilepsy and skull base endoscopic approaches, and was organized with the collaboration of the Neurophysiology department, the Neuroradiology department and Rabat Medical School affiliated to Mohammed Vth University Souissi.

Six Japanese faculty, eight Moroccan faculty and more than fifty participants, residents and young neurosurgeons, attended the seminar (40 from allover Morocco and 11 from different subsaharian African countries). (Fig. 1)

During three days, participants assisted to thematic conferences, case discussion sessions, video sessions and live surgery transmission cases. On Tuesday 09th, the seminar started with conferences concerning epilepsy surgery, covering all aspects of surgical indications and techniques. Two cases have been selected for surgery to be operated on the next day (one case of hemispherotomy and one case of callosotomy) (Fig. 2). On Friday 10th, participants assisted to the live surgery transmission, and on the afternoon to the endoscopic skull base surgery conferences. Again, two cases have been selected for surgery on Saturday 11th (one case of pituitary adenoma and one case of skull base CSF leak repair). (Fig. 3)

All live surgery cases were managed successfully, and participants were very satisfied from the live demonstration and their feedback was very positive, already asking about the next year’s edition of the seminar.

We would like to highlight the invaluable contribution of the Japanese faculty to the success of this seminar: Prof. Kensuke Kawai, Prof. Hidenori Sugano, Prof. Masaki Iwasaki and Prof. Tomonori Ono for the epilepsy surgery team, and Prof. Takeo Goto and Prof. Kazuhito Takeuchi for the endoscopic skull base surgery team. (Fig4&5)

Pr A. El Ouahabi,
Professor and chairman
Neurosurgery department – Hôpital des
Spécialités - Rabat Chairman of the organizing Committee
2nd vice president of WFNS

Fig1: Group Photo of participants to the Second WFNS Foundation Rabat Live Surgery Seminar