by Sarah Liptrott

The EBMT (European Group for Blood and Marrow Transplantation) Annual Meeting is the most important annual event for research and education in the field of bone marrow transplantation in Europe.

Attendance at the EBMT Annual meetings has grown over recent years, with participants including international experts, scientists, physicians, nurses, statisticians, clinical research technicians, patients and for the first time this year, processing laboratory personnel.

Its scientific programme includes symposia, educational sessions and workshops covering issues related to stem cell and bone marrow transplantation.

The 38^th Annual Meeting of the EBMT was held in Geneva, from 1^st to 4^th April this year. Over 3,600 delegates attended, representing 68 countries.

As part of the Annual EBMT Meeting, sub meetings were held: the 28th Meeting of the Nurses Group, the 11th Meeting of the Data Management Group, the 4th Meeting of the Quality Management Group and the 6th EBMT Patient & Family Day.

This meeting also included the 1st Meeting of the Cell Processing Group for biologists and technicians working in cell processing laboratories and a Paediatric Day, focusing on relevant educational, working party, scientific and poster sessions.

Over 450 nurses participated to the 28th Nurses Group Scientific programme, which included workshops, plenary and poster sessions.

On Saturday 31^st March, there was a pre-meeting study day held, focusing on “Early and Late Effects after Haematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant, and their Impact on Patients Quality of Life”. This year there were also six early morning educational sessions covering Extra Corporal Photopheresis (ECP), Management of the immunosuppressive patient, Transplant at home, Donor issues, Compliance and Safe administration of chemotherapy.

The Keynote speaker in the opening session was Prof. Nora Kearney, Director of the Cancer Care Research Centre of the University of Stirling, United Kingdom, who gave a stimulating talk about nursing research and how education can improve the profile of the Bone Marrow Transplant nurse. She also spoke about the research project in which she is currently involved, regarding the implementation of an innovative, nurse-led Advanced Symptom Management System (ASyMS©) to improve patient care.

The EBMT Nurses Group has collaborated to make educational materials more accessible to nurses, and during this Annual Meeting, slide sets covering “Haematopoietic Stem Cell Mobilisation and Apheresis” and “Current Strategies for Management of MDS” were first presented. This and other similar materials are available on the EBMT website www.ebmt.org

The EBMT Nurses Group Research SubCommittee, also presented some future research plans. The first plans to look at Anti Thymoglobulin and Lymphoglobulin administration, to be undertaken through a survey of JACIE accredited stem cell transplantation centres (Joint Accreditation Committee – ISCT & EBMT), looking at patient & staff safety and quality of care.

The second will explore sexual function of adult survivors and their partners 3 and 15 years post allogeneic Stem Cell Transplantation as a cross-sectional study among European Centres in collaboration with the Late Effects Working party of the EBMT, as there is increasing evidence that cancer and its treatment can have a negative impact on the sexual function and on the relationship of patients and their partners.

The 39th EBMT Annual Meeting in 2013 will be held in London, UK from 7th to 10th April. Further information regarding the preliminary programme, registration details etc are available of the EBMT website.