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BLOG: A fellow’s take on day 1 of the ATA annual meeting
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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — This year’s American Thyroid Association annual meeting included sessions that focused on iodine deficiency and its effect on the thyroid gland and presentations on exciting new research in the field.
Sun Lee, MD, second-year fellow at the Boston University School of Medicine, shared her insight on the first day of the conference.
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The first day of the 83rd Annual Meeting of the American Thyroid Association started with an early riser symposium on international status of iodine deficiency, chaired by Elizabeth N. Pearce, MD. In this symposium, John Lazarus, MD, Eduardo Pretell, MD, and Margaret Rayman, BSc, DPhil (Oxon), RPHNutr, each described the current international iodine status.
Sun Lee
Lazarus gave us an overview of Europe’s iodine status. Although severe iodine deficiency has much improved since many countries adopted mandatory iodized salt use, it was surprising that mild iodine deficiency is still prominent even in developed and/or high-income countries. This is especially worrisome as pregnant women in many of these countries with mild iodine deficiency are actually more than mildly iodine-deficient, given their increased iodine requirement during pregnancy and lactation.
Pretell then spoke about the dilemma regarding recommendations to decrease salt intake for cardiovascular health and persistent iodine deficiency in Europe.
Rayman concluded the symposium with a study showing an association between iodine deficiency and worse cognitive development in children in U.K. The symposium sparked plenty of comments and questions from the audience, many of whom were all concerned about the state of iodine deficiency and subsequent effect on cognitive development in babies. More public awareness and perhaps necessity of government involvement in increasing iodine supplementation in a population-based policy were discussed among the presenters and audience.
The Sidney H. Ingbar Award lecture that followed lunch was given by Ronald Koenig, MD, PhD, of University of Michigan, on PAX8-PPAR-gamma fusion protein (PPFP) in thyroid cancer. An especially interesting portion of his research was the use of pioglitazone, which is a PPAR-gamma agonist as well as an insulin sensitizer, in a mouse model of thyroid cancer. In the mouse model with PPFP, pioglitazone was shown to be therapeutic, and this animal study will eventually lead to human research.
The clinical oral abstract session after the Sidney H. Ingbar Award lecture was also great, with the presentation of many interesting research abstracts. Marina Nikiforova, MD, FCAP, presented her research on “Targeted next-generation sequencing (Thyroseq) for diagnosis of thyroid cancer,” in which one gene sequencing can potentially uncover all the genetic mutations associated with thyroid cancer from either surgical or FNA specimen. Her research was especially fascinating in this era where people are increasingly interested in “personal genomics.” Angela Leung, MD, MSc, building upon the theme of iodine deficiency from the morning’s session, presented data on comparison of urinary iodine concentration between breast-fed and formula-fed infants in Boston, Mass. Fortunately, there was no difference noted between the two groups that may be partly because of the population studied, which included highly educated, mostly white mothers.
It was a great first day of the meeting, and I am looking forward to the next day full of thyroidology.