HFA’s Research Team gave and received early an holiday gift this year: knowledge. We attended the 59th annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) in Atlanta, Georgia, December 9-12. The unofficial song of the meeting was “Let it Snow” as that (along with the once standing Georgia Dome) is what was on the ground when we arrived. We joined over 25,000 clinicians and researchers from around the world to learn about the latest in research and developments in the field of hematology.
HFA’s Research team attended educational and scientific sessions on bleeding disorders, with topics like “Hemophilia Revolution,” “Elucidating the Excessive Pro-Coagulant Effect of Sequence Identical Analogue to ACE910 in Combination with Bypassing Agents,” Â “Obstetric and Bleeding Complications in Pregnancy with von Willebrand Disease: Results from Inpatient Sample Database 2003-2011,” “The Changing Landscape of Hemophilia,” and “The Relationship of Joint Range of Motion in Patients with Hemophilia A or B without Prophylaxis: A Longitudinal Assessment of the CDC-UDC Hemophilia Dataset.”
From these sessions, we gained valuable insights into what’s on the horizon in bleeding disorders research. From topics like “Prenatal Transplantation of Placental Cells Engineered to Express FVIII Leads to Corrective Plasma Levels of FVAAA after Birth” and “Lettuce Plants Expressing High Levels of Factor VIII Antigen in the Chloroplast for Oral Tolerance in Hemophilia A,” we learned that clinicians and researchers alike are exploring novel ways to approach the treatment of bleeding disorders.
On Monday, December 11, the Research team presented our poster abstract titled, “Understanding Treatment and Care Utilization & Perceptions of Females with Hemophilia A or B in the CHOICE Project.” Our poster discussed the treatment and care utilization issues faced by women with hemophilia A or B. In addition, Wendy Owens was a co-author on two other posters, “Development of a Concept Driven Disease Impact Instrument from Patients with Hemophilia (Pediatric and Adult) and Caregivers” and “Correlations between Patient-Reported Outcomes and Self-Reported Characteristics in Adults with Hemophilia B and Caregivers of Children with Hemophilia B: Analysis of Bridging Hemophilia B Experience Results and Opportunities into Solutions (B-HERO-S) Study.” HFA’s Sisterhood app appeared as the main resource in the poster, “Feasibility of a Smartphone Application (App) Pictorial Board Char (PBAC) as an Endpoint in a von Willebrand Trial.”
It was a full weekend of education and making connections with professionals and experts in the area of hematology as we gained a better understanding of the science behind the field. Though the session and poster titles were both a mouthful to digest, HFA’s Research team is full of information that we are preparing to share with our colleagues and the community. If you would like to receive a copy of the posters HFA presented at ASH, or any other of the 5 posters produced from  the CHOICE Project data, please send us an email at research@hemophiliafed.org.
