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Annual meeting highlights latest treatments, advances in thyroid care

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Attendees heading to this year’s annual meeting of the American Thyroid Association can expect to learn about the latest advances in thyroidology while taking part in educational, networking and professional development opportunities that foster collaboration and discussion of cutting-edge research.

Mona M. Sabra

“In contrast to other endocrine meetings that cover all endocrine subspecialties, the ATA meeting is focused on all matters related to thyroid physiology, pathophysiology and the advancement of management of thyroid disorders,” Mona M. Sabra, MD, an endocrinologist with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and a program committee co-chair, told Endocrine Today. “The targeted audience are thyroid specialists, general endocrinologists with interest in thyroidology, and specialists who manage thyroid disorders, such as head and neck surgeons, endocrine surgeons, pediatric thyroid specialists, pediatric endocrinologists, nuclear medicine specialists and pathologists.”

The 89th annual meeting, taking place from Wednesday through Sunday at the Sheraton Grand Chicago, will bring together more than 1,200 physicians, researchers and health care professionals to hear from experts on topics ranging from iodine in thyroid disorders, clinical management of low-risk thyroid cancer and the challenges of thyroid imaging.

Antonio Di Cristofano

“ATA has historically been a very tight-knit, multidisciplinary community, where basic scientists, endocrinologists, oncologists, surgeons and pathologists come together in an extremely interactive manner,” Antonio Di Cristofano, PhD, professor in the department of developmental and molecular biology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and professor in the department of medicine at Albert Einstein Cancer Center, New York, and a program committee co-chair, told Endocrine Today. “Our annual meeting represents a unique ‘trading post’ where the clinical research and clinical practice communities can interface.”

The meeting has grown in recent years, Di Cristofano said, in part due to efforts to develop sessions focusing on important issues in thyroid surgery, such as the need for central neck dissection and the appropriate extent of surgery. Organizers also previously worked with the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging to develop sessions focusing on the use of pretreatment scans before radioactive iodine ablation and the use of radioactive iodine to treat distant metastasis.

This year’s meeting set an abstract submission record with 560 scheduled presentations from 39 countries, Di Cristofano said.

“We are close to matching or breaking the all-time attendance record set last year in Washington,” Di Cristofano said.

In addition to the traditional variety of plenary lectures, symposia, discussion-debates and “meet-the-professor” workshops, the 2019 meeting will offer a full schedule of related events:

• A unique symposium dedicated to the memory of the late Leslie DeGroot, MD, professor emeritus in the departments of medicine and radiology, former director of the Thyroid Study Unit and chief of endocrinology at the University of Chicago. That symposium, taking place Saturday at 5:25 p.m., will be chaired by Samuel Refetoff, MD, a professor emeritus of medicine at the University of Chicago, and James A. Fagin, MD, an endocrinologist and internist with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
• The ATA Pediatric Thyroid Satellite Symposium: Update on Pediatric Thyroid Disease 2019, taking place Saturday from 8:50 to 11 a.m., will highlight important issues in pediatric thyroid medicine, such as outpatient thyroidectomy in the pediatric population, the long-term effects of radioiodine treatment on female fertility, and a debate on thyroid surveillance for childhood cancer survivors.
• This year attendees can learn more about evidence-based free triiodothyronine and free thyroxine combinations during the first joint symposium of the ATA, the British Thyroid Association and the European Thyroid Association, featuring speakers in both Chicago and London, on Sunday at 6:30 a.m.
• A Sunday patient discussion, open to the public and all meeting attendees, will feature a panel of individuals with hypothyroidism from 10:45 to 11:15 a.m.

Additionally, the presentation of updated guidelines on anaplastic thyroid cancer will be a “centerpiece of this year’s meeting,” Di Cristofano said.

“We are excited about the upcoming meeting in Chicago,” Sabra said. “It is a great city and venue. We again have record attendance this year and hope that the program will satisfy our audience.”

Endocrine Today and Healio will provide coverage from ATA 2019. For more information on the ATA agenda and registration, visit www.thyroid.org/89th-annual-meeting-ata/. – by Regina Schaffer

Disclosures: Di Cristofano and Sabra are co-chairs of the ATA annual meeting.