Address for correspondence: Jan Styczyński, Department of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, Collegium Medicum, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Skłodowskiej-Curie 9, 85–094 Bydgoszcz, Poland, phone +48 52 585 48 60, e-mail: jstyczynski@cm.umk.pl
The European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT) is the largest scientific society in the field of hematopoietic cell transplantation and cellular therapy. Scientists, physicians, nurses, data managers, pharmacists, psychologists, statisticians, quality officers, patients and their families from more than 100 countries all over the world attend the Annual Meeting. The 49th such event took place in Paris between 22–26 April 2023, with more than 5,500 attendees.
Over 200 sessions were organized including scientific, educational, administrative, and business meetings. Over 1,150 abstracts were submitted for physicians and nurses, with 200 presented orally and 950 as e-posters.
The EBMT’s Annual Meeting is a very important scientific event. All the most significant achievements in the field of hematopoietic cell transplantation and cellular therapy are presented, and new trends are explored.
The two most prestigious prizes awarded at the 2023 meeting were:
- The Van Bekkum Award: Ingvar Floisand et al., ‘Vedolizumab for prophylaxis of lower gastrointestinal acute graft-versus-host disease after allogeneic hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation from unrelated donors: a phase III, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter study’;
- The Basic Science Award: Erik Thiele Orberg et al., ‘Bacteriophage-modulated production of intestinal interferon inducing metabolites is associated with protection in allogeneic stem cell transplantation patients’.
The six highest-scoring abstracts presented at the Presidential Symposium this year were the following:
- Per Ljungman et al. ‘Improved outcomes over time and higher mortality in CMV seropositive allogeneic stem cell transplantation patients with COVID-19: an IDWP study from the EBMT registry’;
- Emily Liang et al. ‘Factors associated with duration of response after CD19 CAR T-cell therapy for relapsed/refractory CLL: 5-year follow-up update’;
- Spyrou N. et al. ‘An early endpoint for acute graft versus host disease clinical trials’;
- Joseph McGuirk et al. ‘CTX110 allogeneic CRISPR-CAS9-engineered CAR T-cells in patients with relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma: results from phase I dose escalation carbon study’;
- Franco Locatelli et al. ‘Efficacy and safety of a single dose of exagamglogene autotemcel for transfusion-dependent β-thalassemia and severe sickle cell disease’;
- Rodríguez-Otero P. et al. ‘Idecabtagene vicleucel versus standard regimens in patients with triple-class-exposed relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma: KARMMA-3, a phase III randomized controlled trial’.
Poland, with 21 transplant centers accredited with the EBMT, is the 8th largest country in the society. Currently, there are 620 EBMT centers which are located in 55 countries, and the top 10 countries represent 445 centers i.e. 71% of the total. At the 49th EBMT Annual Meeting, Polish scientists presented or co-authored 16 original studies selected for verbal presentation, plus many e-poster presentations. This is proof of high activity, both at national and international level, which is continuously evolving [1–5]. Polish physicians are active in most of the EBMT Working Parties.
Authors’ contributions
JS — sole author.
Conflict of interest
The author declares no conflict of interest.
Financial support
None.
Ethics
The work described in this article has been carried out in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans; EU Directive 2010/63/EU for animal experiments; Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals.