What to Expect at the 2021 International Congress on the Future of Neurology

Stephen Silberstein, MD

This September, the third annual International Congress on the Future of Neurology® will kick off to showcase the most recent advances in the treatment of patients with neurologic disorders. Set to be held in a virtual format on September 17-18, presentations will cover the latest across the breadth of subspecialties.

Program chairs Fred D. Lublin, MD, Saunders Family Professor of Neurology, and Director, Corinne Goldsmith Dickinson Center for Multiple Sclerosis, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; and Stephen Silberstein, MD, director, Headache Center, and professor of neurology, Jefferson Health, will lead the congress’s faculty in their presentation of practice-changing clinical data and strategies to incorporating new therapies into clinical practice.

“There are many different topics that we're going to cover on the future of neurology,” Lublin told NeurologyLive. “It's important to remember that neurology has entered, and is expanding into, a golden era of treatment options. At this conference, we'll be looking at neuromuscular disorders, epilepsy, headache, sleep disorders, a special section on multiple sclerosis—which is my main interest—movement disorders, stroke, and updates on Alzheimer disease.”

Fred D. Lublin, MD

The wide scope of the meeting is expected to feature a comprehensive overview of pharmacological and nonpharmacological modalities for all of the neurology subspecialties involved in the program. The learning objectives of this program are centered around outlining current and emerging diagnostic concepts for neurologic disorders, including:

• Clinical evidence for the management of neurologic disorders across multiple lines of care.
• The mechanisms of action of therapeutic agents used to manage neurologic disorders.
• Strategies for early recognition and management of treatment-related toxicities associated with neurologic therapies.
• Multidisciplinary care strategies for optimizing patient outcomes in the setting of neurologic disorders.
• Recent landmark data from clinical trials in the context of evolving treatment paradigms in neurology.

Silberstein explained his perspective on the meeting in a conversation with NeurologyLive, as well, noting that he’s heard interest from colleagues about the interplay between the care that these specialties provide. One such example is the relationship between sleep and headache and dementia, among others.

“We're going to be having a talk I will be cochairing about glymphatics, how they improve function, and how they clean out toxins the produce dementia,” Silberstein said. “I will then be starting with devices in migraine prevention and treatment, which offers a nondrug treatment for patients with migraine. We'll talk about myasthenia gravis, peripheral neuropathies, and amyloidosis. We'll then move on to epilepsy, and we'll talk about new drugs delivery mechanisms, preventing seizures, patients with tuberous sclerosis, and preventing sudden death.”

“What we've done is pick hot topics and put together panel discussions to make people understand what's happening in fields aligned to their own. Being a headache specialist, what’s exciting to me is I'm learning about things at a high level about other neurological disorders that I wouldn't normally hear about,” he added.

The benefits of attending this conference include the explanations about the novel mechanisms of action for new antiseizure and rescue medications; access to expert discussion on the latest treatments for neuropathic and diabetic pain syndromes; feedback on challenging clinical cases from nationally/internationally recognized experts; updates on emerging therapies, such as modulation devices, for migraine treatment; and the latest on new gene therapy trials for Huntington disease and Parkinson disease; among many others.

“I'm particularly anxious to listen to the Medical Crossfire on starting MS therapies with highly active agents versus the full array of agents, which will be a debate that we'll be having to kick off the MS session,” Lublin explained, adding, “I think this program would be great for clinicians, practitioners, residents, and fellows, especially those who are thinking about taking the upcoming on neurology boards.”

The target audience for the 2021 Congress is physicians who treat patients with neurologic disorders, though, as Lublin alluded to, fellows, nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and other health care professionals interested in the management of patients with neurologic disorders are also invited to participate.

For more coverage of IFN 2021, click here. For more information and to register for the meeting, click here.