Marking a milestone in paediatric renal transplantation

The upcoming Annual Scientific Meeting of the Irish Nephrology Society will mark 21 years of the paediatric renal transplantation programme. The Medical Independent previews the varied and stimulating agenda.

The Annual Scientific Meeting of the Irish Nephrology Society (INS) is a seminal event in the Society’s calendar. The mission of the INS is to ensure high-quality care for patients with kidney disease by promoting the highest standard of medical practice. It has an integral role in the education and training of doctors working in nephrology and advises the Government, public, and the profession on healthcare issues relating to kidney disease.

The INS 2024 Annual Scientific  Meeting takes place at the Gibson Hotel in Dublin on 14-15 June. The meeting will mark the 21st anniversary of the paediatric kidney transplantation programme, which was established at Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) at Temple Street in 2003. As such, paediatric care has a special focus in the meeting agenda.

The main conference will be preceded by a point of care ultrasound course for NCHDs.

INS President Prof Donal Reddan will deliver his welcome address to delegates in the afternoon of Friday 14 June. Prof Reddan is a Consultant Nephrologist and Honorary Professor at Galway University Hospitals.

Prof Sam Kant, Consultant Nephrologist at Cork University Hospital, will present the opening talk when he will provide a clinical practice update on hyponatraemia.

It will showcase 21 years of the paediatric transplant programme with contributions from medical staff, patients, family, and friends

Following this, Prof Charuhas Thakar, Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), will present on the topic of ‘Dialysis dependent acute kidney injury: Conveyer belt to personalised care’. Prof Thakar is Director of the Wellcome-Wolfson Institute for Experimental Medicine at the School of Medicine, Dentistry, and Biomedical Sciences at QUB.

On Friday evening, a special presentation will be made to Dr Mary Waldron, Consultant Paediatric Nephrologist at CHI at Crumlin, to celebrate her tremendous contribution to the specialty.

Paediatric transplant

On Saturday morning (15 June), delegates will hear an update on latest developments to support nephrology care in the Irish health service from Prof George Mellotte, National Clinical Lead for Renal Services at the HSE National Renal Office.

This will be followed by a focus on developments in the area of paediatric transplant. This session will be chaired by Dr Michael Riordan, Consultant Paediatric Nephrologist, CHI at Temple Street. Ms Dilly Little, Consultant Transplant Surgeon, National Kidney Transplant Service at Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, will discuss paediatric transplantation; while Dr Chai Wei Teoh, Director of the Renal Transplant Programme at the Hospital for Sick Kids, Toronto, Canada, will speak on disease recurrence in paediatric kidney transplantation.

The next session will be chaired by Prof Atif Awan, Consultant Paediatric Nephrologist at CHI at Temple Street. It will showcase 21 years of the paediatric transplant programme with contributions from medical staff, patients, family,
and friends.

Following this, Dr Sarah Cormican, Consultant Nephrologist at the Mater Hospital, Dublin, will chair a session of basic science oral presentations.

These four presentations will be on: ‘Exploring the role of teneurin transmembrane protein 2 (TENM2) in podocyte dysfunction in diabetic kidney disease’ (Ms Elena Giardini, University College Dublin); ‘Characterisation of monogenic kidney disease in older patients with CKD’  (Dr Elhussein A E Elhassan, Beaumont Hospital); ‘Synthetic lipoxin mimetics modulate neutrophil phagocytosis in CKD’ (Dr Dean Moore, University College Dublin); and ‘Developing and characterising a novel kidney organoid-immune cell co-culture system for the study of inflammatory renal disease’ (Dr Darrell Andrews, University College Dublin).

The fourth session of the meeting will be chaired by Dr Damian Fogarty, Consultant Nephrologist and Honorary Professor, QUB, and will explore new frontiers in glomerular diseases.

It will feature two presentations. Dr Damien Noone, Programme Director in Paediatric Nephrology at the Hospital for Sick Kids, Toronto, will speak on ‘C3 glomerulopathy – from pathobiology to complementary therapies’, while  Dr Michelle O’Shaughnessy, Consultant Nephrologist at University Hospital Galway, will present on the KDIGO guidelines for lupus nephritis.

The following session features five clinical science oral presentations. It will be chaired by Prof Donal Sexton, Consultant Nephrologist, St James’s Hospital, Dublin.

The presentations will be on ‘Temporal clustering of anca-associated vasculitis occurrence’ (Dr Matthieu Coq, ADAPT); ‘PKD1 compared with non-PKD1 genetically confirmed autosomal dominant cystic kidney disease’ (Dr Darragh O’Donoghue, Beaumont Hospital); ‘Serial measures of urine soluble CD163 predict kidney failure in AAV glomerulonephritis’ (Dr Sinead Stoneman, Cork University Hospital); ‘Retrospective review of 15 years of bacteraemia in patients undergoing dialysis at Beaumont Hospital’ (Prof Peter Conlon, Beaumont Hospital); and ‘An international study of renal biopsy practice: An Irish perspective’ (Dr Michael Toal, Centre for Public Health, QUB).

This will be followed by a presentation from the Sinead Kinsella Bursary Award Winner 2023. The bursary recipient, Dr Mairead Hamill, will deliver a presentation titled ‘PHYLLIS study: CKD risk modification in postnatal period’. The winner of the Sinead Kinsella Bursary 2024 will be announced later in the evening.

The sixth session of the INS conference will be on genetics in kidney disease and chaired by Prof Peter Conlon, Consultant Nephrologist, Beaumont Hospital and RCSI.

The presenters are Prof Catherine Quinlan, Consultant Paediatric Nephrologist, University of Melbourne, Australia, whose talk is on ‘Enhanced variant analysis in genetic kidney disease – insights and practical applications’; and Prof Dervla Connaughton, Eugen Drewlo Chair in Kidney Research and Innovation, Western University, Ontario, Canada, whose presentation is titled ‘Genetic kidney disease: Does age really matter?’.

Conclusion

The final session of the meeting, on tubulopathies, will be chaired by Dr Sarah Moran, Consultant Nephrologist at Cork University Hospital.

During this session, ‘Tubulopathies: Living with abnormal electrolytes’ will be explored by Prof Detlef Bockenhauer, Consultant Paediatric Nephrologist, University Leuven, Belgium, and Prof Stephen Walsh, Consultant Nephrologist, Department of Renal Medicine, Royal Free Hospital, London, UK.

The meeting will conclude with the announcement of several awards, including the J P Garvey Award (best medical student/intern poster); Vincent Dolan Award (best oral clinical science presentation); and Sinead Kinsella
Bursary 2024.