The Thrombosis Congress, organized by the Mediterranean League Against Thromboembolic Diseases, has an established role and tradition in the field of basic and clinical research on arterial and venous thromboembolic disorders.

I am thrilled to organize the 21st Thrombosis Congress (July 6-9, 2010) in Milan, the city chosen to organize EXPO 2015!

The year of the Congress (2010) marks the end of the first decade of the third Millennium: the right time to make a balance on the most important steps forward in the field of thrombosis!

In 2010 new anticoagulants will provide long-term treatment of arterial and venous thrombosis without the need of regular laboratory monitoring. Progress is also likely to take place in antiplatelet agents, and advances in pharmacogenomics should help to better personalize the drug treatment of thromboembolism.

The 1990s has been the decade of thrombophilia and of our understanding of the major mechanistic role played by gain-of-function mutations of coagulation factors in venous thromboembolism. The first decade of the third Millennium is likely to witness progress on the genetic basis of complex diseases, such as coronary artery disease and stroke, through whole genome search of associated gene variants.

This may in turn help to unravel new mechanisms of disease and open the path to new treatments. In particular, it is hoped that much progress will take place in the treatment of both ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke, dramatic scourges that have not witnessed the dramatic advances that took place recently in the field of acute coronary syndromes.

Needless to say, progress in basic science is essential to foster advances in clinical medicine, and I am sure that the Milan Thrombosis Congress will feature new basic mechanisms of atherogenesis and thrombogenesis.