Scientific report 2021 of the Paediatric Diseases Working Party (PDWP)

In 2021, a major focus of the WP activities was the challenge to offer an educational program adapted to the circumstances of the COVID crisis. The mandatory virtual format encouraged the PDWP to implement a monthly e-learning session into its educational portfolio. This allowed us to invite attendees from all over the world beyond the usual EBMT catchment area. Offering updates on contemporary and burning topics of the entire transplant field. The result was extremely successful. Many sessions were followed by more than 100 attendees from all over the world. 

“How to transplant patients with Sickle Cell Disease/Thalassemia in 2021”, “Virus-specific T-cells in 2021” and “How to diagnose and treat VOD in 2021” are only some exemplary topics that were offered via a pre-recorded webinar and consecutively discussed in a moderated 45 min live session.
The highest rate of attendance with 249 was achieved with ‘How to treat acute Graft-versus-Host Disease in 2021’, hosted by Anita Lawitschka and Hilde Greinix.

Most recently, a half-day webinar on “Challenges in CAR T-cell therapy for paediatric ALL”, organized and with active contribution from the Cellular Therapies Subcommittee, has been realized with great success. (See complete list of talks below).

From October 7^th to 9^th the first international Educational Course on Cancer Predisposition was hosted by the WP, also in a fully virtual format. During the three-days meeting, all aspects of the current cancer predisposition syndromes were presented by more than 30 international experts worldwide. Each session offered the opportunity to interact directly with the speakers in order to discuss and ask questions. The meeting was attended by 84 participants from 24 countries.

The scientific output in 2021 reached an IF of 60.72. One of the most important publications of this year are the results of the outcomes of unmanipulated haploidentical transplantation using post-transplant cyclophosphamide (PT-Cy) in pediatric patients with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia from Annalisa Ruggeri, published in Transplant Cell Therapy.

Another highlight was the meta-analysis on efficacy of allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation in Sickle Cell Disease, as a joint publication of the EBMT PDWP and the Sickle Cell Transplantation International Consortium.

The Educational Program for 2022 foresees the continuation of the very successful E-learning sessions with expert presentations and live Q&A sessions. Depending on the topic, some will be realized in a provocative pro’s and con’s format.

Moreover, the long-standing tradition of the very popular biannual “Sickle Cell Disease Meeting will be (hopefully) realized as a face-to-face meeting” in the city of Regensburg, Germany. Due to the overlapping interests the focus will be extended, including thalassemia syndromes. Therefore, save the date for this flagship PDWP educational event for May 19^th to 21^st, 2022.