4th Symposium "The Contemporary Importance of the Intestinal Microbiota"

The 4th Symposium on the Contemporary Importance of the Intestinal Microbiota was organized by the Croatian Society of Gastroenterology (HGD), the Croatian Section of Neurogastro and Motility (HUNM), and the Faculty of Medicine Rijeka, and was supported by the ESNM.

As at previous meetings, the focus was on other aspects of the importance of the microbiota for human health, apart from the digestive system. At this meeting, we particularly emphasised the role of the gut microbiota in the development of skin diseases and diseases related to women’s reproductive health. Given the increasing use of probiotics in daily medical and pharmaceutical practise and the number of preparations that appear on the shelves of our pharmacies every day, the quality of probiotics is an issue in itself. Top biotechnologists from the most important European probiotics factories as well as experts from the academic world presented the importance of quality in production and distribution. The perennial theme of these symposia was faecal transplantation. We focused on current indications and emphasised the possibility of using faecal transplantation for new indications. The legal regulations in this area have changed considerably and were also addressed.

Finally, the symposium has a strong practical component - a special section is planned for practical indications for the use of probiotics, such as irritable bowel syndrome, atopic dermatitis, women’s reproductive health and much more. Following the latest edition of the World Gastroenterology Organisation guidelines (WGO 2023), our pharmacist colleagues have prepared a special overview of the formulations available on our market. The special feature of this symposium is the emphasised multidisciplinarity, so the speakers were outstanding experts from various fields - dermatologists, gynaecologists, nutritionists, biotechnologists, gastroenterologists, microbiologists and pharmacists from Croatia and abroad.

More than 35 speakers and 300 participants made this conference the most important probiotic event in Croatia.