28th March 2015
by Dr Dayal Mukherjee (Director, The Aura Clinic London)
In what is always a rather pleasurable start to Spring, the French Riviera beckoned my attendance for the third successive year at what is arguably the largest international meeting for aesthetic and anti-ageing medicine and surgery in the world.
This is the global summit for the industry, organised by Euromedicom, where the who’s who of the world of aesthetics make an assured appearance, and deliver a lecture or two, and where corporate types leave no stone unturned to project the best impressions of their latest technological offerings. Their intended audience includes dermatologists, plastic and cosmetic surgeons, aesthetic physicians, cosmetic dentists, nutritionists, and specialist nurses from all corners of the world.
This year is no exception, and the atmosphere is decidedly high-octane. At the sprawling Grimaldi Forum exhibition complex in the heart of Monaco, my time during each of the 3 days is largely split between attending academic presentations and surveying the buzzing keen corporate floor for potential new discoveries, an activity which is also generally entertaining. No new piece of kit I saw really made the cut for purchase this year unfortunately, except perhaps the latest Regen PRP centrifuge, which I made a mental note to look at acquiring later in the year. Lecture hall demonstrations included novel and established procedures, some truly cutting-edge, others frankly not so (or in need of evolution), but all invariably impressive in their ambition to break new frontiers in technique and technology.
Notable live patient demonstrations included the Allergan masterclass series on facial resculpting using their Juvéderm range of dermal fillers, and Silhouette Soft non-surgical facelifts. Regrettably I did not recall seeing anyone demonstrate a combination of these two procedures, which effectively means one may revolumise, rejuvenate AND resuspend the sagging midface area in one 45-minute sitting. In the carefully selected patient, this combination therapy remains to date one of my favourite and most effective procedures ! Well there’s always next year…
On the Friday evening I find myself invited to a lavish dinner organised by Filorga (a major French aesthetic company that albeit seems to not have much of a UK operation). Atop the open-terraced restaurant overlooking Monte Carlo Bay, I catch up with esteemed industry colleague and good friend Dr. Patrick Treacy, who is on form and giving me a ruthless “no-prisoners” appraisal of the day’s best and worst academic expositions. After a brief conversation with a journalist for a local magazine about my opinions on the aesthetic trends surfacing from this conference, I decide that’s enough business until the following morning and motion toward the impressive buffet dinner (where Patrick has already started without me)
All in all, the AMWC is an international meeting with great variety and quality within its remit of educational and scientific offering, and a real melting pot of cutting-edge ideas and new approaches to anti-ageing. How does this impact on my practice of aesthetic medicine ? It certainly creates an invaluable environment for scientific evaluation and debate of the best and latest aesthetic techniques, some of which historically have been seen here for the first time, becoming mainstream practice within a few years thereafter. How much of this new knowledge I decide to incorporate into my practice is inevitably down to my considered assessment of the clinical safety, evidence base, theory and effectiveness of any new procedure or technique. Nevertheless, to attend this meeting is akin to feeling the pulse of aesthetic industry – a valuable educational and professional opportunity.
