The 51^st SIOP Congress will take place in Lyon, France October 23-26, 2019.  Once again, we received a record number of abstract submissions for the Congress–1747, which is about 200 more than the record number submitted for the Kyoto meeting in 2018.  France, the host country, had the most abstracts submitted (198) followed by the US.  We continue to see increasing number of abstracts from all over the world with India #3, China #4, United Kingdom #5, Mexico #6, Egypt #7, Turkey #8, Canada #9, and Brazil #10.

Working together, the Scientific Committee and the Local Organizing Committee have prepared an outstanding scientific program.  This Congress will include the 4^th SIOP-St. Baldrick’s Foundation Seminar, focusing this year on Development and Use of Pediatric Cancer Models.   Other excited Symposia include the My Child Matters Symposium: Advancing Nutritional Education and Research in LMICs, and the IPSO/PROS/SIOP Symposium on Interdisciplinary Concepts in Unresectable Tumors, along with 7 others.

There will be 8 exciting keynotes including The Burden Of Childhood Cancer Worldwide And How IARC Informs The WHO Cancer Policies given by Elisabete Weiderpass, the new Director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which is located in Lyon.

Three late-breaking abstracts will be selected for presentation during a special one-hour session. Late breaking abstract submission opens July 1^st and closes September 3^rd, 2019.

The new meeting schedule used last year in Kyoto proved to be very successful and popular and allowed much more interaction during poster and poster discussion sessions. Day #3 (Saturday October 26) is a full day, ending about 5 PM.  There will be two 90-minute poster sessions on the evenings of Thursday October 24 and Friday October 25, with half of the posters presented each day.  Beer, soft drinks, and light snacks will be provided to encourage attendance and conversations.  These sessions will use poster boards, with presenters also encouraged to submit their posters electronically so that they will be available on the SIOP Congress app and also able to be posted on the SIOP website after the meeting.

We look forward to a very exciting and informative SIOP 2019 Congress and hope to see you in Lyon!

Stephen P. Hunger, MD Chair, Scientific Committee	Christophe Bergeron, MD Chair, Local Organizing Committee