ELPA Educational Training – DAY FIVE, 2nd December 2020

The fifth and last day of ELPA Educational Training on December 2, 2020, was composed of a mix of presentations from Pharma Companies and representatives from the medical-scientific field. The meeting started with ELPA President Marko Korenjak welcoming everybody.

Representatives from AstraZeneca delivered a two-part presentation. Ms. Marchione, Global Oncology Patient Affairs, gave an overview of the company, its engagement towards patients, especially in oncology. She stressed the fact that liver cancer for them is a very new field, and they are excited to work on it. Regarding liver cancer, Mr. Moren, Global Oncology Medical Affairs, presented more in detail the disease, gave details about immuno-oncology therapies, and described AstraZeneca clinical trial portfolio. During the Q&A session, attendees stressed that all these new therapies provide hope to liver patients and motivate patients’ associations to continue their work.

After the break, Dr. Teresa Casanovas Taltavull, hepatologist and ELPA Scientific Committee leader, took the floor. Her presentation was focused on the pediatric side of liver diseases. She started giving an overview of the elimination of Viral Hepatitis C (HCV) in children and adolescents. She gave details about diagnosis and treatments stressed the importance of a target like reproductive-aged women. Then, she shifted the audience’s attention to two rare liver diseases in children: the Lysosomal Acid Lipase Deficiency (LALD) and the Progressive Familial Intrahepatic Cholestasis (PFIC). Dr. Casanovas Taltavull ended her presentation by giving some information regarding the ELPA Liver Cancer Working Group. She presented some facts and figures about Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) and some future projects and goals the Working Group would like to achieve in 2021.

The last part of the webinar hosted a presentation by Prof. Christoph Roderburg from the Universitätsmedizin in Berlin. He delivered a detailed and exhaustive overview of HCC treatments and combinations of drugs explaining the current standard and some different combinations that gave an idea about the future in this field. He concluded his presentation stressing that the rise of novel combinations has improved the prognosis of patients with advanced HCC and that individualized treatment of HCC patients is possible.

Before the end of the meeting, ELPA President Marko Korenjak thanked everybody for participating in ELPA Educational training.