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My experience at the European Respiratory Society Congress 2022

Julia McAdam

Thank you to LCNUK for supporting my attendance at the ERS congress 2022 in Barcelona.

I was successful in having an abstract accepted for thematic poster presentation, the title of which was: Impact of the covid-19 pandemic on lung cancer referral and treatment.

The opportunity to present at conference is always a daunting one, but I was keen to share our work, and also have the opportunity to discuss similar work with colleagues from across Europe. The feedback from the moderators was very encouraging, and the discussion with other colleagues will lead me to do further analysis on the work that we presented. I would be happy to submit another abstract to this conference in future.

Although this is a Respiratory conference, there was a good amount of content about thoracic malignancy. One of the most interesting session was describing mesothelioma in situ (MIS) which is believed to be a precursor to invasive mesothelioma (MM). There was discussion as to whether it is possible to determine if MIS would definitely lead to a full MM diagnosis. There is no clear information available about whether MIS is ever bilateral, and a radiologically and visually normal pleura with MIS on biopsy might conceivable harbour a small amount of MM. There is no approved therapy or follow-up programme for MIS.

There was also a brilliant session on Prehabilitation, led by Prof. Sandy Jack at Southampton University. It was interesting to see that a lot of colleagues in the audience had little experience of Prehabilitation, based upon the questions that were asked. It’s good to know that the UK lung cancer teams are clearly advancing in this area, with support from charities and with the benefit of research and clinical trials.

One of the benefits of attending a respiratory conference is the opportunity to attend non- lung cancer sessions. I was very interested to hear from the expert panel in a session entitled ‘the danger of the air we breathe’. In this session, there were presentations of the scientific highlights about the effects of airborne pollution factors, especially allergens, diesel exhaust particles, micro plastics and micro textiles on the lungs, comparing their effects in children and adults and to discuss the biology of allergen-induced lung disease. Much of the global respiratory health crisis can be attributed to the 350,000 new substances that have been introduced into modern life since the 1960s. It was a fascinating collection of presentations.

I would recommend other LCNSs look at the ERS website for information and education opportunities.

Headshot of Julia McAdam

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