Dear Madam, Sir,

It is a great honor and pleasure to welcome you all in Marseille for the 18th WorldMEN meeting. Marseille has a longstanding tradition of managing endocrine tumor syndromes, as shown for instance by the previous WorldMEN meeting which was held almost 16 years ago in the Pharo Palace, the same place where we will be standing this year in presential. More recently, the 17^th WorldMEN meeting was supposed to take place in Marseille in 2021. Due to the COVID, it became virtual, and this is why we are now very happy to welcome you in Marseille in 2023.

The WorldMEN meeting has something different compared to all the other classical meetings: it was first created to allow for intense discussions about the discovery of the genetic etiologies of tumor syndrome in 1984. Over the last years, the WorldMEN meetings expanded the scope of their participants to a wide audience of endocrinologists, surgeons, gastroenterologists, oncologists, geneticists and more, all concerned by the diagnosis and management not only of multiple endocrine neoplasia, endocrine tumor syndromes and the various diseases they include (Von Hippel Lindau disease, pheochromocytoma and paraganglioma, pituitary tumors, neuroendocrine tumors, neurofibromatosis, calcium disorders…), but also endocrine cancers in general. Still more than an update on these conditions with the world renown specialists who are at the cutting edge of research, the aim of this meeting is to allow for fruitful scientific discussions around multicentric studies and collaborative projects.

Accordingly, this 18^th WorldMEN meeting has been organized by inviting experts from all over the world to give you the most updated data on endocrine tumor syndromes during workshops that will leave a large time for discussions, or plenaries on genetics, diagnosis, consequences or treatments of such syndromes. Together with the input of the organizers of previous WorldMEN meetings, we have the support of both national (French Endocrine Society SFE, and the Endocrine Tumor Group GTE) and European Societies (European Neuroendocrine Association ENEA). Last but not least, new international guidelines on pheochromocytoma will be discussed, and updates on MEN1 guidelines will also be presented for the first time.

I am sure that all these reasons will convince you to come to this promising 18^th WorldMEN meeting.

Frederic Castinetti
President of the local organizing committee of the 18^th WorldMEN meeting

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Many Thanks!