DIAMONDS AT ESPID 2022 CONFERENCE IN ATHENS

DIAMONDS will join the 40th Annual Meeting of the European Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases that will take place between the 9th and the 13th of May in Athens Greece & Online.

Our Consortium will attend the conference with several fascinating oral presentations as well as e-poster discussions and presentations. (ESPID Scientific Program)

-Follow DIAMONDS at the JOINT PIDS-ESPID SYMPOSIUM regarding the newly described clinical entity “MIS-C” (Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children):

MIS-C 2 Years – Progress and Challenges in Diagnosis and understanding Mechanisms

• Professor Mike Levin from Imperial College, London will discuss on behalf of the ESPID, the progress and challenges in diagnosis as well as the possible underlying mechanisms related to this new clinical entity. Part of the data to be presented derives from the “PERFORM” and “DIAMONDS” consortia, the “BATS” study, and other multicentered or international collaborations
• During the same session Heather Jackson from Imperial College, London, will present new data about a newly discovered host expression signature which is able to differentiate MIS-C from Kawasaki disease and other viral or bacterial infections with high accuracy. Patients were recruited through EU-funded “PERFORM” and “DIAMONDS” studies and the NIH-funded “PreVAIL kids” study.

-On the same day, a Parallel Symposium will be held on the “Management of Fever” in which PERFORM and DIAMONDS will participate with many interesting presentations:

• Clinical Prediction Tools for Serious Bacterial Infections in the Emergency Care

The fear of misdiagnosed serious bacterial infections in febrile children often leads to inappropriate antimicrobial use, unnecessary admissions, and extensive diagnostic work up. To optimize the management of children with fever, Professor Henriette Moll from Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam will describe how clinical prediction tools perform in the identification of children at risk. Professor Moll was head of the “MOFICHE” study which was embedded in the “PERFORM” project.

• Precision Medicine in the Management of Fever: The Role of Host Biomarkers

Decoding the febrile child, Myrsini Kaforou from Imperial College, London will describe the promising role of host biomarkers in the personalized evaluation of febrile children based on PERFORM and DIAMONDS findings.

• In the same session Chantal Tan from Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam will present a “MOFICHE/PERFORM” study which examined the adherence to existing guidelines during management of young febrile infants visiting the emergency department in different European centers.
• Lastly, Samuel Channon-Wells from Imperial College, London will discuss the performance of nano-STRING technology in the parallel validation of multiple transcriptomic diagnostic signatures. He will also explore the potential for more sophisticated multi-class classification models.

DIAMONDS will also participate in the e-poster discussion presentation section as well, that will be held on the 12^th of May, notably:

• Fabian Van der Velden from Newcastle University will give insight into children and young people’s perspectives around current biobanking and consent practices to improve consent procedures.

Please find summarized in the table below all major ESPID DIAMONDS presentations, as well as general presentations from members of our Consortium:

Click on the Presenters names and Sessions for more information