American Transplant Congress program addresses perfusion, equity and organ procurement
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Key takeaways:
- The annual American Transplant Congress celebrates the 70th anniversary of the first kidney transplant performed in Boston in 1954.
- The conference will be held June 1-5 in Philadelphia.
Editor’s note: Healio | Nephrology News & Issues interviewed John Friedewald, MD, and Roberto Hernandez-Alejandro, MD, about their roles as conference chairpersons and highlights of the agenda for the American Transplant Congress.
The American Transplant Congress (ATC) will take place June 1-5 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia.
For more information and to register for the meeting, visit www.atcmeeting.org.
Healio | Nephrology News & Issues: What do you see as the highlights for this year’s Congress?
John Friedewald, MD: We do two things when we plan the ATC. One is we invite programs, so we have an invited program series that is driven by the community, and we put together a series of programs and lectures based on what people are presenting to us as important topics. Then, we create our State-of-the-Art Lectures. This year, there are two big topics we will cover at the congress. The first is the evolution of organ perfusion. This technology, which helps us preserve organs inside and outside the body, has been rapidly advancing after being stagnant for many years.
The other important topic is the ongoing reforms we are seeing from the United Network for Organ Sharing regarding organ procurement. Former HHS Secretary, the Honorable Alex M. Azar II will be one of two State-of-the-Art speakers and talk about his views on that topic, as well as changes in reimbursement to end-stage renal disease care.
And of course, we will have a session to update attendees on progress with xenotransplantation, based on recent events.
Healio | Nephrology News & Issues: This year marks the 70th anniversary of the first successful organ transplant, performed in December 1954. What is the significance of that event in terms of this year’s ATC?
Roberto Hernandez-Alejandro, MD: It is impressive to see what we doing 70 years after the first kidney transplant in Boston. It always seemed like xenotransplantation would be near impossible to do. Over the last 5 to 10 years, however, the progress has been impressive. It is hard to imagine that Joseph Murray, MD, did the first kidney transplant in human twins and now we are doing transplants with a genetically modified pig kidney transplanted in a human.
Healio | Nephrology News & Issues: Resolving issues with equitable access to transplantation is on the program. Are all patients getting access to the organs they need?
John Friedewald, MD: It is important that we quantify the problem. We are not clear why all patients do not have access to a transplant evaluation. There are major efforts underway to try and get over these hurdles.
Roberto Hernandez-Alejandro, MD: The speakers at ATC will be discussing best practices at a forum on this topic. We have some great speakers who will be sharing their insights. Both the American Society of Transplantation and the American Society of Transplant Surgeons are working hard to try and improve equitable access to transplantation.
Healio | Nephrology News & Issues: What are some other important topics this year at the ATC?
John Friedewald, MD: We will have speakers that are addressing the importance of biomarkers. The field is advancing and we are using better tools to do more individualized assessments of patients. These developments are helping us to get closer to the promise of personalized medicine.
We also have late-breaking clinical trial sessions this year – in fact, we had to divide this program into three sessions because of the number of new trials. We wanted to make sure we put the science in the lead.
Roberto Hernandez-Alejandro, MD: This is the largest meeting in the world for transplant physicians, surgeons and health care workers. One area that is evolving is the field of transplant oncology. Previously, patients with liver cancer only had the option of oncological treatments, like chemotherapy. Now, we have the opportunity to give these patients a liver transplant with a curative intent. This is impressive – how we are evolving, how we are changing our approach.
As mentioned earlier in this interview, I also think normothermic regional and machine perfusion will be an important topic at this meeting. We can perfuse the organs in the body, avoiding any perfusion above the chest. This improves the quality of the organ and allows us to choose the best organ for transplant. So normothermic and machine perfusion are two areas that are helping us to advance to the next level.
Healio | Nephrology News & Issues: Does the program offered this year go beyond being of interest to physicians?
Roberto Hernandez-Alejandro, MD: One of the areas I have been working with the ATC on as co-chair is developing interest among advanced transplant practitioners in our program. We also want to appeal to transplant pharmacists, transplant coordinators and transplant social workers; they need to have access to these presentations. We learn from various medical topics but we also learn from other institutions. This is the way to increasing interest [in the ATC]: improving and getting better and sharing our knowledge.
For more information:
John Friedewald, MD, is professor of medicine and surgery at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and medical director of kidney transplantation at Northwestern Medicine.
Roberto Hernandez-Alejandro, MD, is chief of the division of transplantation at the University of Rochester and director of the University of Rochester Medical Center’s Transplant Institute.
Collapse
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts