Journal of Pediatric Surgery 2026 – BAPS Congress Edition
Only two years after the caravan rolled out of a particularly luscious part of Flanders, it was back….. This was BAPS BRUGES II – the Return. Partly for economic reasons (good financial deal post-COVID pandemic); partly for reasons associated with sampling yet more beer from Bruges‘ famous breweries; and partly because no-one else from the Continent had stepped forward!
The academic content, of course, is central to any scientific congress and once again standards were smashed and new ones set. The Peter Paul Rickham prize was won by Lucinda Tullie (GOSH) for “Engineered human intestinal mucosal grafts survive and differentiate following in vivo transplantation in mouse” and the President’s Prize by Christoph von Schrottenberg (Mannheim, Germany) for “Pulmonary function in adolescent survivors of congenital diaphragmatic hernia and correlation to the left thoracic area in serial chest radiographs” (a bit of mouthful but we know what he meant). However, none of these presentations have actually been published. By contrast, the BAPS Congress edition in the Journal of Pediatric Surgery is now in print and this is what this article is about.
An exceptional 39 papers were submitted for consideration for publication. This, in the year of a new submission system directly through the JPS website for all, which confused several with some submissions becoming lost within the machine or arbitrarily rejected – the team from Birmingham was badly affected by one particular autobot I’m afraid. These were distilled into 21 accepted papers; so about a 50% acceptance rate. https://www.jpedsurg.org/current
As a service to BAPS members I have selected some of these published papers for educational purposes, illustrating the breadth and talent of the authors. First, we have the Journal of Pediatric Surgery Lecture by Augusto Zani to lead off; this was very well-received in the lecture theatre at the time.
- Zani A. Silent Messengers in the Nano-World: Harnessing Extracellular Vesicles as Theranostic Tools for Neonatal Surgical Conditions. J Pediatr Surg 2025 Sep 16:162670. doi: 10.1016/j.jpedsurg.2025.162670.Zani lecture.pdf
The Diaphragmatic Hernia Symposium was an admired, international affair, from which Pablo Laje managed to glue together a pleasing summary article.
- Kathrin Zahn, Joe Curry, Patrice Eastwood, Holly L. Hedrick, Pablo Laje. Congenital diaphragmatic hernia repair: Patches, muscle flaps, and the search for the ideal technique. Published online: October 20, 2025 162752 CDH symposium Laje.pdf
Other independent papers were accepted from around the UK.
- Zeni Haveliwala, Athanasios Tyraskis, Kathryn Ford et al. Beyond cloacal malformation. Addressing unclassifiable complexity. 162695 Published online: September 25, 2025 Zeni classifiable cloaca.pdf
- N Engall, RT Peters, DJ Wilkinson, N Lansdale. Large hiatus hernia requiring hiatoplasty – An ongoing challenge: A case series . Published online: August 20, 2025 hiatoplasy hiatus hernia Manchester.pdf
- Ferzine Mohamed, Anindya Niyogi, Mark Davenport. Where have all the fundoplications gone? A look at changes in national practice in England (April 2012–March 2024) ferzine fundoplications.pdf
- Simran Sehdev, Indre Zaparackaite, Hannah Bellsham-Revell, Hemanshoo Thakkar Quantifying the impact of congenital cardiac co-morbidities on anorectal malformations. Published online: August 12, 2025 cardiac associations evelina.pdf
- Jonathan J. Neville, Sumita Chhabra, Georgina Bough,…Anju Goyal, Nigel J. Hall, Harriet Corbett. Clinical and histological predictors of disease severity in boys with lichen sclerosus: A prospective multicentre observational stud. Published online: August 21, 2025. 16260 lichen sclerosis 02.pdf
Published online: September 27, 2025
Good luck to all of those that are considering a submission to the BAPS congress in Manchester in June. Remember, submission is open to all accepted abstracts with a deadline of May 26th 2026. Accepted case-reports are also eligible for submission to the JPS Case Reports website and if accepted the publishing fees will be waived.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/journal-of-pediatric-surgery-case-reports
Edited by,
Prof Mark Davenport
Guest Editor – the Journal of Pediatric Surgery