Every three years, SBA plans to convene an international symposium designed to bring together health care professionals and researchers in the field of Spina Bifida. This innovative meeting, called the World Congress on Spina Bifida Research and Care, serves as the premier forum to bring together the range of medical disciplines which serve this complex birth defect.

Second World Congress
The Second World Congress will be held March 12 – 14, 2012 at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. For more information about the meeting, to submit an abstract, or to register, please visit the Second World Congress Web site at www.worldcongressonsb.org.

First World Congress
The First World Congress on Spina Bifida Research and Care convened in March 2009. Medical and other healthcare professionals took the next steps in developing and translating research to improve our system of healthcare for those living with Spina Bifida.

Among many other research findings released, one of the most potentially impactful findings presented during the three-day Congress was a revised figure on the number of Americans living with one of the various forms of Spina Bifida. Preliminary findings from a study conducted at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicated that instead of the 70,000 figure which has been widely used, the actual number of individuals living in this country with this challenging birth defect is up to 166,000. For more information on this and other research outcomes, please visit http://medicalconference.spinabifidaassociation.org.