COPD and Lung Health 2008: a Four-hour Interdisciplinary Program
November 15th, 2008, New York City—The Lung Health Fair and Symposium (coordinated in collaboration with the 1199SEIU Training and Upgrading Fund—the largest healthcare union in the New York area) was held at the Crowne Plaza in New York City (located at 48th and Broadway). There were two components to the event—an educational symposium and a lung health fair (exhibit area). Both industry and not-for-profit groups had exhibit tables at the event, some of which were “hands on” including spirometry, pulmonary rehabilitation, smoking cessation, nutrition, and an exhibit from the Mt. Sinai 9-11 clinic.
The educational symposium was open to all health care providers and professionals in the following titles who will receive continuing education credits for attendance: nurses, dietitians, respiratory therapists, pharmacists and technicians, physician assistants, clinical lab practitioners, and social workers. The symposium included presentations on COPD, causes of shortness of breath, asthma and co-morbidity conditions. Over 1,000 individuals participated in person and via webcast. The Mobile Spirometry Unit had a booth within the health fair, where 58 individuals were tested for COPD.
The success of this program and demonstrated strong interest in repeating this event next year. Click here to download a PDF of the official event invitation: 1199SEIU Lung Health Fair Invitation.pdf.
Ascertaining Incident COPD Workshop
October 26th, 2008, Philadelphia, PA—Many large National Heart Lung Blood Institute-funded epidemiologic studies have ascertained baseline measures of lung function and routinely obtain and adjudicate medical records from hospital admissions for cardiovascular disease (e.g., MESA, Framingham, Hispanic Community Health Study [HCHS], and Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities [ARIC]). The 16,000 person HCHS is currently funded to obtain and adjudicate hospital admissions for COPD and asthma; however, adjudication cannot be performed without a standardized definition and procedures, and none of the current approaches are adequate for the adjudication of incident COPD in a general population sample.
To address this issue, the COPD Foundation sponsored a one-day workshop to address the following:
1. Review the literature and currently available criteria for COPD.
2. Assess likely biases in the application of existing criteria to epidemiologic studies of participants without COPD at baseline.
3. Modify existing criteria and/or develop new criteria for the purposes of:
*Adjudication of death records forCOPD.
*Adjudication of emergency room visits/hospitalizations for COPD.
*Ascertainment by questionnaire of COPD exacerbations of moderate severity not requiring hospitalization.
4. Identify areas of future research and validation of criteria.Identify areas of future research and validation of criteria.
The workshop was moderated by Dr. Graham Barr of Columbia University, and featured presentations from Dr. Lisa LaVange of the Hispanic Community Health Study, Dr. Robert Wise of Johns Hopkins University, and Dr. Gerard Criner of Temple University. Approximately ten other leading researchers in the field participated in the workshop.
A final document of the workshop’s proceedings is currently being drafted, but once completed, will be posted here.
Quantitative Chest Tomography Workshop
April 3rd & 4th, 2008, Bethesda, MD—The two-day workshop involved both presentations and discussions by experts in the field and the group as a whole. The presentations covered the state-of-the-art practices in the use of the present CT technology in order to elucidate shortcomings and areas of future research.
The COPD Foundation and the Alpha-1 Foundation co-sponsored the Gordon L. Snider Critical Issues Workshop #10 entitled Quantitative Chest Tomography in COPD Research. The two-day workshop involved both presentations and discussions by experts in the field and the group as a whole. The presentations covered the state-of-the-art practices in the use of the present CT technology in order to elucidate shortcomings and areas of future research.
The specific goal of this workshop bringing together international leaders in the field was to review the state of the art in quantitative CT relative to COPD in order to arrive at a set of recommendations that will be useful in future research and assessment. A limited number of participants were admitted to facilitate vigorous debates. Topics of discussions were followed after each presentation. Dr. Harvey Coxson of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver gave an overview of CT measurement of airways, and then Dr. Ken leader from the University of Pittsburgh spoke about the accuracy of CT measurement of airways. Dr. Berend Stoel gave a talk about the validation of CT scanners for multi-center and longitudinal studies of COPD, among various other presenters. (Click here to download a PDF of the program book.)
The need for this workshop was timely since it demonstrated that quantitative computed tomography has the potential to be a very important tool to study the pathogenesis of COPD, but more importantly, in studies of surgical, bronchoscopic and pharmacologic interventions.
You can read the published articles from this workshop by visiting the American Thoracic Society’s Journal. (Please note that by clicking this link you will be redirected to another website.)