What to Expect From the 38th Congress of ECTRIMS

Maria Pia Amato, MD

The 38th Congress of the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ECTRIMS) is set to begin in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, on October 26, 2022, with an accompanying virtual component running concurrently. The meeting is expected to be attended by more than 8000 individuals from more than 100 countries, featuring almost 250 speakers on a variety of topics related to the care of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS).

NeurologyLive^® will be providing live coverage of this year’s ECTRIMS Congress, featuring updates right from the floor of the RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre. The team will be conducting interviews with expert physicians and covering talks and presentations of the latest data in MS.

Sessions are planned to cover treatment and management, emerging concepts in disease mechanisms, biomarkers of disease progression, cutting-edge therapeutic developments, and more, with 10 Hot Topic sessions including presentations on the most relevant issues to the MS research community. The conference will kick off with the 2022 ECTRIMS Lecture, given this year by Brenda Banwell, MD, chief of the Division of Neurology, codirector of the Neuroscience Center, and Grace R. Loeb Endowed Chair in Neurosciences, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Her talk, “Putting POMS in Perspective,” will take place on October 26, at 12:00 PM CEST. The 2022 Confavreux Lecture, titled, “The Future of Neuropathology in MS,” will be delivered by Christine Stadelmann-Nessler, MD, professor of neuropathology, Goettingen Graduate Center for Neurosciences, Biophysics, and Molecular Biosciences, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, on October 28, at 5:15 PM CEST.

“Despite the challenging times over the past 2 years, we have witnessed an ongoing evolution in both the treatment and the journey for people living with and impacted by MS. ECTRIMS has also been working hard to evolve and this is reflected in the organization, the program and the activities on offer at our first hybrid conference,” ECTRIMS President Maria Pia Amato, MD, said in a statement.¹

This year’s congress has been broken down into 4 main topic tracks for attendees to navigate during the meeting: Therapy, Pathogenesis, Clinical, and Imaging and Nonimaging Biomarkers. The 10 Hot Topic sessions that have been selected and when they occur are as follows:

• Hot Topic 1: High-Efficacy Therapies (Day 1) – 10:00 AM CEST
• Hot Topic 2: NMOSD (Day 1) – 10:00 AM CEST
• Hot Topic 3: Novel Body Fluid Biomarkers (Day 1) – 10:00 AM CEST
• Hot Topic 4: New Ways of Imaging MS Pathology (Day 1) – 10:00 AM CEST
• Hot Topic 5: Escalating and De-escalating DMTs (Day 2) – 10:00 AM CEST
• Hot Topic 6: Inclusion of Optic Nerve Lesions in McDonald Criteria (Day 2) – 10:00 AM CEST
• Hot Topic 7: Lifestyle Interventions (Day 2) – 10:00 AM CEST
• Hot Topic 8: Pediatric MOGAD (Day 3) – 10:00 AM CEST
• Hot Topic 9: Pharmacovigilance (Day 3) – 12:00 PM CEST
• Hot Topic 10: Emerging Role of Lipids in MS (Day 3) – 12:00 PM CEST

In addition to the Hot Topic sessions, the ECTRIMS Congress will also include a number of other sessions, including a Late Breaking Abstracts session, which will occur on October 28 at 3:30 PM CEST. Chaired by Mar Tintoré, MD, PhD, clinical chief of neurology, Neurology-Neuroimmunology Department, MS Centre of Catalonia, University Hospital Vall d’Hebron; and Tobia Derfuss, MD, professor of medicine and senior physician, Departments of Neurology and Biomedicine, University Clinicit, the session is expected to feature a swath of presentations, including the following:

• O177: Predictive sNfL Z score cut-offs in MS vary depending on the outcome and may help increase diagnostic specificity at the expense of sensitivity in CIS patients not fulfilling McDonald MS at baseline — Georgina Arrambide, MD, PhD
• O178: Early non-disabling relapses are associated with a higher risk of disability accumulation in people with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis — Cyrus Daruwalla, MD
• O179: Multi-center, randomized, double-blinded assessment of dimethyl fumarate in extending the time to a first clinical demyelinating event in radiologically isolated syndrome (ARISE) — Darin Okuda, MD
• O180: A non-inferiority study of rituximab versus ocrelizumab in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis — Izanne Roos, MD, PhD
• O181: Effectiveness of autologous haematopoietic stem cell transplantation in comparison with natalizumab in progressive MS — Tomas Kalincik, MD, PhD
• O182: Broader Epstein-Barr virus-specific T-cell receptor repertoire in patients with multiple sclerosis — Tilman Schneider-Hohendorf, PhD

Additionally, each day of the 2022 Congress will also feature poster sessions, occurring at 3:00 PM CEST each day of the meeting. There are also 2 planned Nurses Sessions, which will offer insight into the evolving role of nurses in MS care as well as the need for more MS nurses. Both sessions take place on October 26, at 10:00 AM CEST and 2:30 PM CEST, respectively. The meeting is also expected to feature 4 Meet the Expert sessions, which will cover the following topics:

• Meet the Expert #1: Pregnancy and Breastfeeding in MS – Chairs: Rhonda Voskuhl, MD; Elisabeth G. Celius, MD, PhD (Day 2)
• Meet the Expert #2: Choosing Therapy - Similar Compounds, Same Effect? – Chairs: Ludwig Kappos, MD; Stephen Hauser, MD (Day 2)
• Meet the Expert #3: Aging - Impact on Diagnosis and Treatment – Chairs: Alan Thompson, MD; Bianca Weinstock-Guttman, MD (Day 3)
• Meet the Expert #4: Preventing Misdiagnosis – Chairs: Matilde Inglese, MD, PhD; Jeffrey Cohen, MD (Day 3)

Notably, this year, ECTRIMS has announced that it will launch of a new podcast that will debut during the Congress. The first episode will be released on the morning of October 27, as part of ECTRIMS’ new 365 Program, which the organization describes as “a year-round initiative designed to enable and equip specialists and generalists across research and clinical practices with the most relevant and up-to-date knowledge and skills via new educational and training opportunities.” The ECTRIMS podcast can be accessed here: ectrims.eu/podcast.

REFERENCE
1. 38th Congress of ECTRIMS – World’s Largest in MS Research – Opens in Amsterdam, NL. News release. ECTRIMS. October 26, 2022. Accessed October 26, 2022.