Nearly all members of the IPPF Medical Advisory Board attended the autoimmune blistering disease meeting in Japan and many gave presentations on new research in pemphigus and pemphigoid. Clinical speakers from the MAB included Dr. Jean-Claude Bystryn, who spoke about rituximab experience in the USA, and Dr. Pascal Joly who spoke on his rituximab experiences in France. General discussion centered around the design of a new clinical trial of rituximab for pemphigus to be conducted in Europe that will be coordinated by Dr. Joly using different dosing schedules.
The other main discussion was about the development of accurate and clinically useful scoring systems for pemphigus and other AIBDs. Dr Michael Hertl, Germany, spoke on a scoring system proposed by the German group, termed the autoimmune bullous disease intensity score (ABSIS), one of the two present scoring systems. Dr. Victoria Werth, USA, presented on the comparison study performed with patients last August at the University of Pennsylvania, in terms of reliability and validity of two outcome instruments for pemphigus, as well as the international Pemphigus Disease Activity Index (PDAI) and the ABSIS.
Presentations on the first day covered the pathogenesis of pemphigus and included IPPF MAB members Dr. Luis Diaz and Dr. Sergei Grando. The chairmen of the meeting included Dr. John Stanley and Dr. Masa Amagai. Other world leaders on the causes of pemphigus presented their new work, including scientists Kathy Green (Chicago), Peter Koch (Denver), Andrew Kowalcyk (Atlanta), and Eliane Mueller (Switzerland), along with dermatologists David Rubenstein (Chapel Hill), Carlo Pincelli (Italy), Aimee Payne (Philadelphia), Yumi Aoyoma (Japan), John Zone (Salt Lake City) and Detlef Zillikens (Germany). Topics included signalling pathways, apoptosis, new animal models of blistering diseases and the role of the immune system.
The International Pemphigus Definitions group held a meeting organized by Dr. Dedee Murrell (Australia), with the help of Dr. Takashi Hashimoto (Japan), at which Dr. Werth presented the international photovalidation study that is underway to compare the two different scoring systems using photographs, so that more experts can participate.
Additional participants in these meetings included MAB members Dr. Russell Hall (Durham, NC), and Dr. Neil Korman (Cincinatti) and blistering disease experts Drs. Kim Yancey (Dallas), Robin Eady (London), Leena Bruckner-Tuderman (Germany), David Woodley (USC) and Giovanna Zambruno (Italy).
