From 12-15 October 2017 more than 439 clinicians and scientists from 43 different countries attended the annual John Goldman Conference on CML in Estoril.

“The fact that this meeting takes place for the 19th time this year tells a lot about the passion of the CML scientific community to constantly improving the management of patients with CML and to better understanding the biology of CML”, said Jorge Cortes during the opening ceremony.

Comprehensive scientific program with interactive poster walks

As in previous years the scientific sessions focused on various aspects related to the biology and management of CML including; signal transduction pathways involved in CML, possible mechanisms of genomic instability, leukemia stem cells and it's relationship to disease kinetics, challenges of monitoring individual patients with hematologic, cytogenetic and molecular methods, role of allogeneic stem cell transplantation in the management of CML, possible role of different immunotherapeutic approaches in CML, treatment-free survival as an endpoint in CML management and patient reported outcomes and their role in the management of CML patients.

You can view a summary of the scientific program from the perspective of the meeting chairman,Professor Jorge Cortes here.

The CML focused conference was very well accepted by the participants and seen as a great opportunity to network with CML experts from around the world.

‘It’s so important to have clinical and scientific sessions on CML combined in one meeting’

‘The size of the meeting is perfect and you manage to get into conversation with all the important CML experts’

‘A really nice flow of presentations from leading experts in the field’

Highlights of this conference are the biology and clinical interactive poster walks. The authors present their key findings to the audience followed by a moderated discussion.

A list of all 89 posters presented during brief oral communications and the mentored clinical and biology poster walks are available online here.

John Goldman Fund supports physicians from Macedonia and Pakistan

Once again this year, the John Goldman Fund supported two physicians from low and middle-income countries to participate in the conference and to benefit from the comprehensive scientific program.

• Dr Marica Pavcovic from Macedonia who also undertook a 3-week clinical preceptorship at the Hammersmith Hospital before coming to Estoril

• Dr Syed Owais Ali from Pakistan who presented a poster on ‘Frequency of TET2 gene mutation in MPN patients’ at the conference

2017 iCMLf Prizes award ceremonies

At the 19th Annual John Goldman Conference on CML the iCMLf Directors awarded the Foundation’s2017 prize medals. This was followed by keynote presentations from two of the prize recipients who provided their personal perspectives on various aspects on the biology and management of CML:

• Goldman Prize: Professor Timothy Hughes
• iCMLf Prize: Professor Jerald Radich

The 2017 Rowley Prize was awarded to Professor Tessa Holyoake. Tessa was very touched when she heard about the award and had already completed her presentation when she died in August. At Tessa’s request, her iCMLf medal was accepted by Professor Tim Brümmendorf, from the Universitätsklinikum Aachen, Germany and her keynote was presented by Mhairi Copland, Professor of Translational Haematology at the Paul O’ Gorman Leukemia Research Center at the University of Glasgow. All the keynote presentations will soon be available on the iCMLf website.

Photo Gallery

You can view a gallery of pictures taken during the 19th John Goldman Conference on CML in Houston here.