On 13 June 2017, 18 ESCD members from 11 European countries met at the VU Amsterdam, very nicely hosted by Thomas Rustemeyer, for a constituting meeting of a new working party. This working party had been suggested and confirmed at the Manchester general assembly in September 2016; subsequently, a call for participation and the first meeting had been organised by the ESCD secretary, David Orton. In the apporox. 2 h of the initial meeting, a brainstorming of different conceptual aspects, but also of actual haptens to be included to, modified, or omitted from, the present European Baseline Series (EBS) were discussed. As an important organisational milestone, Mark Wilkinson, Leeds, UK (s.m.wilkinson@btinternet.com) was elected as working party convener and as vice convener Margarida Gonçalo, Coimbra, Portugal (mmgoncalo@gmail.com).
Preparatory work before the next meeting (11am on 28 November 2017, again at VU Amsterdam) will include refining criteria for inclusion in the EBS, suggesting modifications, also including a more experimental add-on series to the EBS, tested along with it in consecutive patients. The aim is to provide a definite change list for comments by the ESCD membership and ratification at the Milan meeting, 18 to 20 October 2018.
Wolfgang Uter, 4 July 2017