The Asian Pacific Digestive Week (APDW) will be held in Singapore from 18 to 22 November 2025. I look forward to welcoming many of you to our beautiful city-state and hope you will enjoy the breadth of educational events that the Singapore APDW Local Organising Committee has worked hard to curate.
This APDW is especially meaningful to APAGE. With the wholehearted endorsement of the APAGE Executive Committee and Council, we will confer the inaugural Master, APAGE Award to a select group of nine individuals who have distinguished themselves through long service to APAGE and sustained contributions to the field of gastroenterology.
Over the past year, we have welcomed new member societies to our community. In addition to the Emirates Gastroenterology and Hepatology Society and the Lao GastroenteroHepatology Association joining us in the past year, I am delighted to announce our newest member, the Cambodian Association of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy. With this addition, our APAGE family now comprises twenty-five member societies.
Our Task Forces and Committees have been actively engaged in educational initiatives. The IBD Committee successfully organised PENANG 2025 in May, in conjunction with the Malaysian Society of Gastroenterology and Hepatology under the leadership of its President, Dr Raman Muthukaruppan. At the same venue, we partnered with the Journal of Gastroenterology & Hepatology Foundation (JGHF) to conduct the second APAGE–JGHF Young Clinicians’ Programme, equipping young doctors with practical research skills. Thank you to the Drs Peter Gibson (Melbourne), Ida Hilmi, (Kuala Lumpur), and Khoon Lin Ling, (Singapore) and the hardworking committee for executing this important endeavour. In the same setting, a consensus on p19 anti–IL-23 inhibitors and small molecules in inflammatory bowel disease was concluded.
On guidelines and consensus, the Task Force on Pre-neoplastic Lesions, led by Dr. Wai Keung Leung (Hong Kong), achieved a notable milestone with its work accepted by GUT. The task force on Green and Sustainability in GI, headed by Dr Tiing Leong Ang (Singapore), besides having the group’s positional statements accepted for publication in the Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology in January 2025, recently organised a well-received educational Zoom webinar on 16 September 2025. We look forward to many in-person sessions from these and other groups, including the Task Force on Women and Leadership in GI, led by Dr Nonthalee Pausawasdi (Bangkok), and the Emerging Leadership Committee (ELC), headed by Drs Rashid Lui (Hong Kong) and Raja Affendi (Kuala Lumpur), at APDW in Singapore. We thank Drs Lui and Affendi for their pivotal work in developing clinical leaders within our community. A leadership renewal and new appointments within the ELC will take place alongside the incoming Executive Committee and Council this November. APAGE will be setting up a Task Force on Pancreas Disease and the chair and members will be appointed soon.
The 14th Asian Pacific Topic Conference (APTC) APST on colorectal cancer was held in September 2025, in conjunction with the Taiwan Digestive Disease Week. We extend our sincere thanks to the Gastroenterological Society of Taiwan for spearheading this effort.
Finally, the revamped APAGE website now offers a more user-friendly platform with updated information and activities. Please explore the site and share your suggestions for further improvements.
Until we meet in Singapore, I wish everyone continued good health and success.
Choon-Jin Ooi
President, APAGE
