Abstract
Preview for Early Career Members on the Sleep and Breathing Conference 2019 and report on international collaboration between the European Respiratory Society and the Chinese Thoracic Society http://ow.ly/IUpi30n2DSL
Preview: Sleep and Breathing Conference 2019
This year the Sleep and Breathing Conference (SBC), organised by the European Respiratory Society (ERS) and the European Sleep Research Society, will take place in Marseille Parc Chanot (Marseille, France) on April 11–13, 2019. The programme of the upcoming 2019 conference includes specialised symposia that cover most sleep disorders: obstructive/central sleep apnoea, narcolepsy, insomnia, circadian disorders and restless legs syndrome, among other related diseases.
This conference will provide the opportunity for Early Career Members to update their knowledge and skills. Most importantly, you can network with pneumologists, basic researchers and other professionals specialising in sleep respiratory medicine and science. The SBC 2019 will cover the main areas detailed in the following sections of this article. The full programme can be found at https://www.sleepandbreathing.org
Diagnostic techniques in adults and children
There will be a promising session aiming to demonstrate how to perform and interpret sleep studies in both adults and children. The main differences between paediatric and adult polysomnography and polygraphy will be presented. In addition, the complexities of sleep and respiratory testing will be shown, along with the limitations, advantages and pitfalls.
Mechanisms from clinical and basic science
Several symposia will present the state of the art in sleep disordered breathing research. For instance, the new insights in the association of obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) with stroke and dementia, the coexistence of sleep disordered breathing with other respiratory diseases (e.g. chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or hypoventilation syndrome) and the role of hypoxia and the usefulness of oxygen in the pathology of sleep disordered breathing will be addressed in different sessions. In addition, a session will summarise the current findings regarding sex differences in sleep disordered breathing, including pathophysiology, clinical presentation, polysomnography findings and cardiovascular risk, and will discuss sleep disordered breathing in specific situations, such as pregnancy.
Treatment strategies
The SBC will provide a state-of-the-art overview of current insights into oral appliance therapy for OSA. Also, there will be a session discussing the multiple components that contribute to the clinical and pathophysiological phenotypes of OSA and presenting new individualised treatment algorithms. The session will also present approaches to difficult clinical situations in specific patient subgroups. In parallel, Meet the expert and Workshop sessions will describe different types of positive pressure airway therapy, to assess the appropriate use of the different therapies, to list different types of positive pressure interfaces and how these may suit different patients, to recognise the concepts of compliance and adherence, and to discuss initiation of continuous positive airway pressure and selection of the appropriate device and interface.
Hot topic debates
There will also be space for debates on hot topics in sleep medicine. For instance, the current indications for and attitudes towards the management of sleep disordered breathing in a sleep laboratory versus the home will be discussed. Also, a comprehensive overview of the status concerning the application for a driving licence in Europe will be provided, to discuss the data and what is needed for the assessment of sleepiness in drivers with OSA.
International collaboration: Early Career Member representatives visit the Annual Congress of the Chinese Thoracic Society
One of the main aims of the ERS is international collaboration across European borders. Annually, the Chinese Thoracic Society (CTS) extends invitations to the Early Career Member Committee (ECMC) to attend the Annual Congress of the CTS and to get connected with the CTS Youth Committee. Last August (2018), two Early Career Member representatives (Lowie Vanfleteren from Assembly 1 and Jana De Brandt from Assembly 9; figure 1) were invited, together with President Elect Thierry Troosters, Education Council Chair Daiana Stolz and Executive Director of the ERS Werner Bill, to strengthen and discuss the collaboration between ERS and CTS.
Early Career Member representatives Lowie Vanfleteren (Assembly 1) and Jana De Brandt (Assembly 9) at the ERS booth at the Annual Congress of the CTS.
The 2018 Annual Congress of the CTS (August 29 to September 2, 2018) was organised in Suzhou, a city surrounded by beautiful lakes and located about 80 km from Shanghai. Around 10 000 delegates from all over China, and a handful of foreign delegates, attended the congress. At the congress, a special English spoken session was devoted to ERS leadership. ERS President Elect Thierry Troosters presented the European perspective on pulmonary rehabilitation. Education Council Chair Daiana Stolz gave insight into the role of biomarkers in community-acquired pneumonia. Former ERS President Francesco Blasi was also present and talked about guidelines for bronchiectasis. This special session was well attended and we hope the Chinese delegates were inspired by the ERS leadership (figure 2).
ERS leadership and Early Career Member representatives with the CTS leadership.
The CTS Youth Committee plays a prominent role within the society as it is responsible for organising the Youth Sessions, presented in English (six sessions, each lasting 2 h, throughout the congress). The Youth Sessions were chaired by CTS Youth Committee members and congress delegates presented their research findings in English. Early Career Member representatives Lowie Vanfleteren and Jana De Brandt were also invited to give a “special report” presentation during these Youth Sessions. Lowie Vanfleteren spoke about the management of comorbidities in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and Jana De Brandt covered how pulmonary rehabilitation can counteract muscle dysfunction in patients with COPD. Both presentations were well attended and inspired discussion. All ERS delegates were impressed by the quality and novelty of the research presented as well as by the English presentation skills of several Chinese delegates. A clear focus within Chinese research lies within the rapidly evolving field of basic science research.
Besides attending the congress, ERS delegates were invited to several dinner meetings to discuss collaboration between the ERS and CTS (figure 3). The head of the CTS Youth Committee, Ying Songming, elaborated on the fact that Chinese clinicians and researchers want to be more involved within the ERS. A fruitful discussion delivered several action points (table 1) that the ERS ECMC and CTS Youth Committee are going to work on in the upcoming years.
ERS leadership and Early Career Member representatives during a lunch meeting with the CTS Youth Committee.
Action points for future collaboration between the CTS Youth Committee and the ERS ECMC
In conclusion, we want to thank all the volunteers from the CTS who were readily available to us. We experienced a warm welcome, tasted great Chinese food, and enjoyed the beautiful marriage of Chinese traditional and novel high-tech culture. And last but not least, we feel very fortunate that we could experience the Annual Congress of the CTS and we hope that the collaboration between the ERS and CTS will blossom in the future. XièXiè (thank you)!
Footnotes
Conflict of interest: J. De Brandt has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: L. Vanfleteren reports personal fees from AstraZeneca, Chiesi, Pulmonx, GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis, outside the submitted work.
Conflict of interest: I. Almendros has nothing to disclose.
Support statement J. De Brandt is funded by the Flemish government. The research and PhD fellowship of J. De Brandt is sponsored by FWO (Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek), grant #11B4718N.
- Copyright ©ERS 2019
Breathe articles are open access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Licence 4.0.
