About SIGNEC
The Special Interest Group for Necrotizing Enterocolitis (SIGNEC) was set up by Dr Minesh Khashu in 2012. Initially comprising healthcare professionals from the United Kingdom, it soon became an international group of neonatologists, paediatricians, surgeons, nurses, dietitians, epidemiologists, researchers, trainees and other healthcare professionals with an interest in this significant clinical problem.
The aim of SIGNEC is to facilitate knowledge sharing, networking and collaboration to optimise research and improvements in practice around the world.
Conferences have taken place in London every year since the first meeting in June 2012, and speakers present some of the latest laboratory research and developments in clinical practice. SIGNEC has also included at its meetings parents of babies who have suffered from the disease.
Necrotizing Enterocolitis was first recognised in the 1950s, and in the absence of a definite aetiology and pathogenesis, efforts at prevention, minimising risk and optimising early management have been difficult. This has not been through a lack of trying, but the biology of immature intestines is much more complex than we previously recognised and NEC, in many ways, is possibly a unique condition in medicine.
Substantial progress has been made recently in the understanding of the molecular elements that determine its development, and these advances may help to improve the development of effective preventive and diagnostic strategies. Insights gained from necrotizing enterocolitis could also have implications to other neonatal and adult inflammatory disease processes.
The aim of this website is to provide professionals and parents around the world with information on NEC and to share some of the research that been presented at SIGNEC conferences. We hope to be able to develop our website much further in the future, and welcome correspondence and contributions.
SIGNEC conferences have been accredited by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) for continuing professional development (CPD) points. Feedback given by professionals, parents and charities has been very positive.
If you wish to contact Professor Khashu about topics for future SIGNEC meetings, please contact him directly at the address below. If you would like to be added to our conference mailing list, or have any other queries, please email contact@signec.org or use this contact form. All correspondence is welcomed.
Prof. Minesh Khashu
Consultant in Neonatal Medicine
Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
mineshkhashu@gmail.com
