Symposium History – How everything started

The first international symposium ACUTE LEUKEMIAS took place in Münster February 23-25, 1986. The two central figures at the beginning of this meanwhile internationally renowned symposium series, were Thomas Büchner, the then Chief Physician at the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Hematology and Oncology at the University of Münster,  and Günther Schellong, the then head of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Münster.

The main subjects of this first symposium dealed with the Therapy of Acute Leukemias in children and adults with special emphasis on multicenter trials, prognostic factors and treatment strategies as well as at that time one of the most promising new therapeutic advances, we now know as bone-marrow or stem-cell transplantation.

Thomas Büchner, whose most prominent patient was Raisa Gorbacheva, was to the end, one of the most driven hematologists who persistent over a life time was driven by the urge to cure more, if not all of his patients. The symposia ACUTE LEUKEMIAS rendered one of the platforms for him to compare the latest progresses and therapeutic methods on hematology and oncology on an international level, thus pushing forward the cooperation between the university of Münster and the most important international studies and study centers, as e.g. the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, US, the MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, US or the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, US.

In memoriam Prof. Dr. Thomas Büchner: