EBMT

A message from the EBMT 2007 Congress President

Dear Members,

It was a real pleasure to welcome you to Lyon last March for the 33rd EBMT Annual Congress, 23rd Nurses Group meeting, 6th Data Management Group meeting and the 1st Patients and Family day. A new record high in attendance was attained with 3618 congress participants (2841 physicians, 563 nurses, 106 data managers) from all over the world to present and hear about the innovations in stem cell transplantation. We would like to thank the local and national scientific organising committee, EBMT Secretariat and Board, speakers, chairs and corporate sponsors for all their hard work and dedication which contributed to the great success both organisationally and scientifically of this meeting.

The 1st Patients and Family Day was equally as successful with 345 participants, and will be now become an integral part of the EBMT Annual Congress. We send a big thank you to everyone who helped create this exciting new partnership. In keeping with a spirit of unity and our desire to reduce waste, we were able to redistribute over 500 unused lunches at the end of the congress to the most needy in Lyon. We hope this practice will be continued at future EBMT congresses.

From a scientific point of view, the EBMT 2007 was stimulating and informative. An update of haplo-identical transplants confirmed the promising preliminary results specifically for acute myeloid leukaemias. Double cord blood cell transplants were increased with a pilot study testing intra-bone infusion of one unit and intravenous infusion of the other. A large number of studies were presented on allotransplants after reduced intensity conditioning allowing allotransplant for older patients. Co-transplantation of solid organ and hematopoietic stem cells were reported to induce tolerance after solid organ transplant, possibly decreasing or even stopping immunosuppression post-transplant. Predictive factors for GvHD were shown including the donor Treg count, NOD2/CARD15 and MDR gene polymorphisms and plasmatic protein evaluations. Regarding GvHD prophylactic and curative treatment, many studies have shown promising results using new immunosuppressive drugs, extra-corporeal photopheresis, monoclonal antibodies and mesenchymal cell infusions. Some interesting results were presented concerning new conditioning used for refractory acute leukaemia and transplant for autoimmune diseases. Progress was also made in the documentation of minimal residual disease and chimerism after transplant. In paediatrics, an increased number of allotransplants for thalassemia and sickle cell anaemia have been done where transplants are needed earlier, before symptoms of cerebral vasculopathy appear. Finally, European recommendations have been written to deal with cases of nuclear accidents.

Two new EBMT honorary members were inaugurated this year: José Carreras and Theodor Fliedner. We would also like to extend our gratitude to Taner Demirer for his commitment and hard work as the ourgoing Chairperson of the Solid Tumour Working Party. We welcome the successor Marco Bregni from Milan to the EBMT and wish him every success in office.

We look forward to meeting with you again in Florence, Italy for the EBMT Annual Congress 2008, and we send our best wishes to Alberto Bosi and Riccardo Saccardi and their organising committee.

Mauricette Michallet
EBMT Congress President 2007

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