ETS Webinar – Novartis
Emirates Thoracic Society (ETS), a reputed organization of scientific meetings hosted a special ETS webinar on Friday, September 25th, 2020 under the sponsorship of Novartis, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies based in Switzerland and managed by Medetarian Conferences Organizing (MCO), the leading healthcare events management across the United Arab Emirates.
Prof. Ashraf Alzaabi, President and Head of Respiratory Division at Zayed Miltary Hospital, chaired this virtual conference bringing altogether two notable speakers to provide us updates and clinical analysis on Lung related diseases.
On the topic of “Severe Allergic Asthma Phenotyping: From Bench to Bedside”, Dr. Mohsin Nasir, Consultant in Pulmonary and Sleep Medicine at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, defined severe asthma as a chronic inflammatory disorder associated with hyper-responsiveness of airways that leads to recurrent episodes of wheezing, breathlessness, chest tightness, and coughing, particularly at night or in the early morning. He argues that asthma is a common disease with increasing prevalence throughout the world.
Talking about Phenotyping in asthma, he argues that using the term “asthmas” is much germane in terms of breaking down its nature which led us to delineate between a phenotype – the observable characteristics of a disease in an individual and the endotype – specific biological mechanisms that cause those observed properties of a phenotype. With this in mind, it is observed that properly assessing a disease’s phenotype or endotype is essential in selecting biologic/immunomodulatory therapeutics and useful in managing severe asthma. Moreso, NIH defines Biomarkers as the characteristic that is objectively measured and evaluated as an indicator of normal biological processes, pathogenic processes, or pharmacologic responses to a therapeutic intervention. He adds, “Since these trials were done, consensus records have indicated that systemic steroids required for a “sever exacerbation”.
To recapitulate Dr. Mohsin’s insightful discussion, the current use of biomarkers to identify severe asthma phenotypes is limited, many biomarkers play multiple roles/overlap and ultimately need data-backed algorithms to properly phenotype severe asthmatics to help individualize therapies and improve outcomes.
Complementing this topic, Prof. Ashraf Alzaabi moderated the follow-up Q and A with Dr. Mohsin Nasir to further add illumination of the broad topic as discussed.
One of the active members of the ETS, Dr. James Doughlas Aitchison, Consultant in Thoracic Surgery at Sheikh Shakbout Medical City, on the topic of “Improving Outcomes in Lung Cancer Surgery” has given us a brief overview with regards to the extent of the problem in which according to the latest report in 2017, about 222, 500 estimated people will be diagnosed with lung cancer at 160, 000 have died from it. As a consultant, Dr. Aitchison outlined medical methods to improve lung cancer surgery such as pre-operative which helps in detection, staging, accurate assessment of operability, and pre-optimisation spanning to peri-operative practice by utilizing ERAS, Regional/Local Anaesthesia techniques, Minimal Access Surgery, and Lesser or Extended Resections to Post-Operative and Neo/Adjuvant Therapy, to prolong overall survival. With his exemplary presentation, he also discussed Thopaz, a digital drainage device that can reduce the duration of chest tube drainage and length of hospital stay. In its scenario analysis, Cedar showed that savings achieved using Thopaz+ instead of traditional drainage were greater for patients with pneumothorax as part of the Post-Operative technique. To improve the welfare of these patients, the Lung Cancer Clinical Nurse Specialist in the United Kingdom has aimed to provide service access by increasing access to treatment, provide assistance in self-management (survivorship) as well as improve patient experience in terms of care quality, safety, and personalized care merely for patient satisfaction and lastly considering the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of clinical nurse specialist.
Prof. Ashraf Alzaabi also made a follow-up probe in which he stressed based on Dr. Aitchison’s topic that CT screening lowers death, thus, he inquires if he’s advocating for CT Screening in the UAE. To quote Dr. Aitchison, “In terms of detecting cancer earlier the first point is in looking at patients who have early cancer on some symptoms who are currently not accessing. So they need quick access to testing and the second part is the actual screening of patients who are at risk to smoke and who have no symptoms and yes there is a piece of strong evidence based on the recommendations for that in the US and the UK.”
This insightful webinar has ended with more Q and A sessions for both speakers.
To watch in its full enlightening entirety, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NNQP5ya99g