Dear Friends and Colleagues,

We are delighted to welcome you to the Hydrocephalus Society Global Webinar Series 2026–2027.

This initiative started in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when meeting face to face was not possible and the webinars became our way of keeping the hydrocephalus community connected. What started as a response to those difficult circumstances has continued every year since, and we hope this year’s series will have a similar success.

We will launch the series with a special webinar celebrating World Hydrocephalus Day on Saturday, 19 September 2026, World Hydrocephalus Day falling the following day. Leading global experts will look back at the past year in adult hydrocephalus, paediatric hydrocephalus and basic science research, and forward to the year ahead.

Hydrocephalus remains under-recognised in many parts of the world, and raising awareness of it — among clinicians, allied health professionals, patients and their families, and those who plan and fund health services — is as important as the surgical and scientific work itself. Practice, resources and disease patterns differ widely between countries, and a great deal of what we each know is learned locally and shared too slowly. Bringing our experience together across regions, specialties and disciplines allows knowledge that is well established in one place to reach colleagues and patients in another, and this exchange remains the main purpose of this series.

The theme of this year’s programme is adult CSF dynamics disturbances — understanding hydrocephalus: current knowledge and future directions. We will continue with the two types of special webinars introduced last year:

• Regional webinars: Africa, South Asia and Oceania.
• Specialty-focused sessions: shunt technology, Chiari malformation as a CSF dynamic disorder, modern approaches to NPH assessment using wearables, digital monitoring and artificial intelligence, the NPH multidisciplinary team, and advances in paediatric hydrocephalus.

We are also pleased to hold a joint session with the Hydrocephalus Association in November 2026, bringing patients, families and professionals together to discuss how partnership improves care. We believe this diverse approach will promote deeper discussions, stronger collaborations, and greater knowledge-sharing among professionals across clinical and basic sciences, and with the patient community.

The format of the webinars would be like previous years, being 10 monthly sessions, each 60–90 minutes in duration, running from September 2026 to June 2027.

Webinars access will continue to be free of charge, in keeping with the Hydrocephalus Society’s mission to advance clinical care and research in hydrocephalus and CSF disorders. Recordings will be available on the Hydrocephalus Society website for all society members who are unable to attend the live sessions.

Your participation, feedback, and suggestions will be invaluable in shaping the future of this initiative.

Sincerely,

On behalf of the Hydrocephalus Society

Ahmed Toma Scientific Lead for the 2026-2027 Hydrocephalus Webinar Series