Road to ATS - San Diego - Wrap Up

Another element to the medical conferences that I find fascinating are the poster sessions. These are where researchers will present the initial results of studies they have done in the hopes of getting feedback prior to seeking to submitting their work for publication in a medical journal. It is not often that I can attend the part of the session where one of the researchers or investigator is present to explain their work to whoever will listen.

This year and this conference I was fortunate to have help with the booth (thanks Joanne), to listen in on comments made by one of our board members and a researcher in his own right Dr. David Rapoport.

The posters this year, as they often are at the ATS meeting, were from all over the world - Perth Australia: The Effect of CPAP on Lower Esophageal Sphincter Function; Valencia Spain: Prevalence of Sleep Apnea Syndrome in Patients with Severe Pneumonia; Fukuoka, Japan: Influence of Cigarette Smoking in OSAS Patients; Santa Catarina, Brazil: Clinical Symptoms and Polysomnography Findings of OSAS - to identify only of the few of the dozens presented.

I make an effort to visit the posters at every conference I attend or at least read over the abstract in the abstract book published for the conference. This is usually where the new developments in diagnosis, treatment and co-morbidity are presented.

Occasionally I have the opportunity to attend the meeting of the local A.W.A.K.E. support group in the conference city. I attended the meeting held in Vista, just outside of San Diego, on Tuesday night. I appreicate having the chance to speak with patients in person and to let them know what the association is doing back in DC. At this meeting I had the chance to see the CPAP device to approved by the FDA - a mobile CPAP manufactured by Hoffman Laboratories.

A treat this year for me was to attend the Respiratory Neurobiology and Sleep section dinner, courtesy of the section Chair. The section is made up of ATS members with similar interests. There was an after-dinner presentation by Dr. Sean Drummond of UC San Diego on sleep deprivation/OSA and cognitive ability from a neuro-imaging prespective. This was something a preview for me of a presentation that I am organizing for the Industry Roundtable meeting at the Sleep meeting next month.

The final day of the conference had two symposiums with an added dimension exclusive to ATS - courtesy of the Public Advisory Roundtable of which the ASAA is a founding member - the patient's perspective. In its wisdom the ATS has welcomed a patient who lives with a condition being discussed to share their story with the attendees. The patient at the two sleep apnea related presentations did just that and was warmly received by the physicians.

I close this installment of the journal with an image of me at the Kansas City Barbeque restaurant - a locale used for the filming of Top Gun... they make a decent BBQ sandwich there as well.

The ATS marks, for me, the start of the conference season. The Sleep meeting is next month in Salt Lake City and the ACCP meeting is in October (also in Salt Lake City). Unlike previous years, this year I will be attending the World Congress on Sleep Apnea. It will be held in Montreal in September.

Watch this space for dispatches from my travels.

On the road to ATS - San Diego II

Exhibiting at medical conferences is something the ASAA has done for a long time. It is one of the best ways to get our patient education material into the hands of the physicians who treat sleep apnea patients. It is also a way to make them aware of the other ways the ASAA is there to help patients who are already diagnosed - through the A.W.A.K.E. Network of support groups.

Of the three sleep-related conferences I attend - this one, the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (now know as Sleep) and the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP) - I am always most impressed with the presentations at ATS.

While sleep related disorders forms a small part of the overall areas of interest to the physicians who are participate in ATS - these physicians tend to be more involved in research than in clinical care. The presentations at the ACCP meeting, on the other hand, tend to more oriented to clinical care. The Sleep meeting, of course, has both aspects in their program.

May 22nd was the first day of the general session and the exhibit hall. The day starts pretty early here. At 8:15 there was a scientific symposium entitled - Sleep Apnea Pathogensis: The Various Pieces. The first presentation after a tribute Dr. James Skatrud was on the role of the Pre-Boetzinger Complex in sleep disorder breathing. This basic research presented looked at this system in the brain responsible controlling breathing and the possibility that damage to this center could related sleep apnea. Heady stuff - there was an news item last summer that talked about this (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8871356/), but here was a presentation of the next steps in the research being done by Dr. Feldman.

The other part of attending these meetings is the exhibit hall. It is here where I join the dozen and dozens of other, mostly commercial interests (i.e. drug companies, instrument manufacturers and CPAP companies) and hawk our wears.

ATS was the first medical conference I attended as the executive director of ASAA. I had been on the job exactly six weeks. There I was going toe to toe with pulmonologists about sleep apnea... sharing with the wealth of information the association has for their patients. It was fun then and still fun now.

Visitors to our booth fall into two distinct catagories: the curious and the curious-ier.

The curious are those doctors who are getting into sleep medicine and need educational material for their patients. They are pleased find our patient education bulletins that have no commerical brand connected with them. Given that a number of the participants in the conference are from other countries I am always getting the question - is this available in X (pick your language) and usually it is Spanish. I am now pleased to say that it will be, thanks to Dr.Servin and that the Apnea Support Forum will have a Spanish language section as well.

The curious-ier ones are the ones that have sleep apnea themselves and are looking for an insight that perhaps they missed. There are still others who have a bone to pick with someone and we are the ones they choose to pick it with. There was one physician who worked with very young children (less than 2 years old) who have sleep apnea and his comment was that there were no masks available to fit their faces in the US. There some available in Austrialia, but not here. We mentioned that ResMed had recently had a approved a CPAP machine and mask approved by the FDA. I could not tell if he had heard of it or not, only that he had a bone to pick.

Working the exhibit hall is great, in spite of the bonepickers, but it is long hours and can, especially if the conference is not well attended, get boring - waiting for the attendees to come around. During these intervals I get the chance to visit with other exhibitors, which is always educational.

Next - the ATS wrapup.