Dear Colleagues,

The Organizing Committee takes great pleasure in inviting you to the 4th World Congress on the Aging Male which will be held in Prague, Czech Republic, February 26-29, 2004.

Despite the enormous medical progress during the past few decades, the last years of life are still accompanied by increasing ill health and disability. The ability to maintain independent living for as long as possible is a crucial factor of health and aging.

Therefore, the promotion of healthy aging and the prevention of disability in all older people must assume a central role in medical research and medical practice as well as in the formulation of national health and social policies. Effective programs promoting healthy aging will ensure a more efficient use of health and social services and improve the quality of life in older persons by enabling them to remain independent and productive.

In addition, modifications of lifestyle including nutrition and exercise as well as hormone replacement therapy, may alleviate the debilitating conditions by preventing the preventable and delaying the inevitable. Evidence is available that risk factor adapted strategies may slow the progress of disease in women. There is an urgent need to obtain such information for men.

Formulation of guidelines, diagnositc and therapeutic recommendations will be presented. Contraversies will be debated and interactive sessions will permit full interaction with the audience.

In light of this, public awareness of medical knowledge needs to be increased and basic, clinical, socio-economic and epidemiological research intensified. This will necessitate a quantum leap in multi-disciplinary and internationally coordinated research efforts. Such efforts should be supported by the establishment of new partners between inter-governmental, governmental, industrial and voluntary sectors. All these considerations will be addressed in the 4th World Congress on the Aging Male.

This Congress is intended for practitioners, experts and researchers of medical, behavioural and social sciences as well as for providers of services and technologies for the aging population.

I am looking forward to welcoming you to Prague in the year 2004 at what promises to be a most stimulating and enjoyable event.

Prof. Bruno Lunenfeld, MD.; FRCOG. FACOG (hon.)
President