AAAAI President Shares Highlights From the 2023 Meeting

Jonathan Bernstein, MD, of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, was installed as president of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology during its annual meeting last month.

In this exclusive MedPage Today video, Bernstein discusses some of the highlights from this year’s meeting, and describes some of the sessions that were of greatest interest to him.

Following is a transcript of his remarks:

Hello, I’m Jonathan Bernstein. I’m the new president of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. I’d like to share with you some highlights of this year’s meeting that I attended. The theme of this meeting was optimizing practice care, or care in the practice. And there were a lot of interesting sessions, starting with the plenary sessions.

And the first plenary session was a presidential plenary session, which dealt with drug allergy. And there were several excellent talks highlighted by the practical approach to treating drug allergies, or managing drug allergies in the practice, by Dr. David Kahn, the outgoing president.

But also there was a very interesting discussion on aspirin-exacerbated respiratory disease, which was given by Joshua Boyce, as Tanya Laidlaw was not feeling well. And also the very interesting talk by Dr. Elizabeth Phillips from Vanderbilt, who spoke on severe cutaneous adverse reactions. And, again, all three of the speakers were excellent. And I think that this goes to the theme of expanding scope of practice to really address drug allergy in the outpatient setting. And the importance of really being proactive in this approach to de-label patients who have this history of drug allergy that’s erroneous, that’s not correct.

There were also other very interesting sessions, a symposium which talked about incorporating exercise in the management of asthma, and also really to expand the scope of allergy immunology practice through genetics in the diagnosis and management of immunologic diseases. So these talks spoke to benefits of exercise across the lifespan of patients with asthma, and also the challenges and exercise counseling in children and adolescents with asthma that was given by Dr. Monica Kraft. And then just other issues with counseling and exercise in older populations by Sharmilee Nyenhuis.

And also teaching about digital technologies in asthma, some of the more smart devices that allow us to monitor our patients’ control. And these are innovative and they do help us have more of a connection between the physician and the patient and their asthma management. And they are emerging, and they will, I think, in the near future be a mainstream part of management of asthma.

We did have the business meeting where I was installed as president. That was a highlight of the meeting for me. And I appreciate your confidence in electing me to serve this organization.

But there were some other sessions, a plenary that really addressed food allergy, and again, part of the common problems that we are addressing, and there were three excellent talks. Amal Assa’ad was the moderator, but Ruchi Gupta talked about understanding food allergy, expanding our understanding of food allergy, and which really focused on equity, diversity issues.

And then there was also a nice talk by Wayne Shreffler that spoke about T-cell suppression in peanut oral immunotherapy. And also Kari Nadeau concluded the sessions by talking about expanding the therapeutic repertoire in oral immunotherapy, and talked about a novel knowledge and implementation of this approach.

So those were excellent talks that I was able to participate in and got a lot out of it. And certainly we do a lot of food allergy in our practice. And this is very helpful in terms of expanding our knowledge of the mechanisms and some of the practices that we should be implementing to address underserved populations, especially in this area.

So there were, again, several sessions on the effects of air pollution on atopic dermatitis, and also the effects of biologics on Th2-type skin disorders, as well as the cutaneous adverse events to checkpoint inhibitors, which are being increasingly used in chemotherapy. And we’re being asked to see these patients when they have these drug reactions and so forth. Again, something the allergist should have a spectrum of knowledge about these drugs. And these are covered in the drug allergy practice parameter that was recently published by the Joint Task Force, David Kahn being the first author.

So I think that gives a nice overview. There was a lot of pre-recorded sessions — I think several hundred hours of pre-recorded sessions on different topics, including drug allergy and immunodeficiencies, immune disorders of the gut and of the immune system.

But I encourage you to listen to these sessions. There was a lot of allied health sessions, both live at the meeting, as well as recorded sessions that have interest to our colleagues, but also mid-level providers who work in allergy and immunology.

So I think all in all, there was something for everybody, and hopefully attending this meeting you went to sessions that were outside your comfort level to gain knowledge and expertise in areas that you can use to expand your practice of care, now that you’re back in your offices or your clinic safely.

So, I hope this was a useful overview of the meeting. I look forward to serving you as president in 2023. A lot of interesting things to come, and take care.