Dear Colleagues and Friends,

We are proud to announce the 18th Annual Budapest Advanced Interventional Conference-Workshop and invite you to return to Budapest for what we consider our finest yet with distinguished faculty from around the world working with our sponsors to bring the latest in advancements in our specialty. We invite you to Budapest, an arena that annually leads to friendship, participation and improved patient care as a result of our belonging in this beautiful and expanding field.

Looking back on these past 17 years, we have made great progress in pain management. We have made lots of friends; we have become safer, better and have had more impact on higher quality patient care. We have more evidence in effectiveness and learned many of the issues that we must avoid in order to prevent undesirable and bad outcomes in our patients. It is interesting that on one hand we have refinement, but at the same time now we have new and improved procedures that we did not know about. Also, the field has expanded because the training and knowledge of the pain practitioners have significantly improved. Our doctors today can appreciate and learn pain procedures and understand the need for increased safety. We have witnessed the birth of the Fellow of Interventional Pain Practice Examination, which began with the World Institute of Pain and mostly significantly in Budapest. We now have 770 FIPPs from 42 countries and you will see the 2012 Budapest and 2013 Maastricht FIPPs honored at the August 27 Awards Ceremony. In Budapest you have also seen the disappearance of remnants of communism and right in front of our eyes the improvement from the work of the people. Improvements are worldwide but the evolution that comes from hard work is unmistakably present when you look at it from a distance. Budapest has grown, and we have grown with it. It is such a pleasure to have old friends come back together, and you will notice that the Examination site has after many years changed dramatically with all the other changes that you see around.

The 2013 Budapest Conference will present a high-quality program. It is remarkable to see the multi-specialty involvement in interventional pain treatment and seeing that the field involves more and more spine surgeons, because they see and realize on one hand, they can treat more patients as well as help patients that suffer complications from surgical procedures. They see also that interventional procedures prevent spine surgery in many patients. It is amazing to see the impact of our friends such as Sam Hassenbusch. Now we have the Hassenbusch Prize for the highest achieving candidate in the FIPP Examination. We also see that it was Sam Hassenbusch who went to the American Medical Association’s code committee to advocate the approval for the lysis of adhesions procedure on behalf of neurosurgery. This year we see the upcoming publication by Ludger Gerdesmeyer, orthopedic surgeon in Germany, who is bringing out the 12-months follow up of a prospective randomized double blind multi center study where the participants in the study were mainly spine surgeons. Interventional pain for the most part, is minimally invasive surgery and essential component of it is neuromodulation. Highly trained physicians regardless of the primary specialty designation practice Neuromodulation procedures.

We are very much looking forward to new improved, better service to our patients through working closely together with industry that provides more and more sophisticated and cost-effective equipment. You will have a chance to meet and share with these representatives from the leading companies that also share in support of this conference.

Dr. James Heavner is organizing the Budapest Conference Scientific Program with some 40 international speakers. The local arrangements chairman, Dr. Edit Racz of Budapest, is serving her 17th year as the motor behind the success of the Budapest Conference.

The Budapest Conference allows for the incredible Hungarian experiences we have traditionally provided. You will enjoy the sights, flavors and sounds of Budapest at the opening reception on Monday evening, August 26 and the Awards Ceremony on Tuesday, August 27.

The Budapest Conference website is http://www.congressline.hu/pain2013. Sandra Vámos and staff from CongressLine are looking forward to working with you again for registration, hotel information for Sofitel Hotel, the 2013 Conference site, and help with any of your needs, including visa information and assistance. The workshop will again be in the beautiful Semmelweis University Pathology Lab.

We look forward to sharing the Hungarian experience with each of you. We can recall memories during this 20th anniversary year of the World Institute of Pain and ask you to share your experiences and memories from the past as well as your expectations for this 18th annual Budapest Conference.

With best personal regards,