For the first time, the Society of Hematologic Oncology (SOHO) is teaming up with the Brazilian Society of Hematology (ABHH) for a joint session at the 2024 Brazilian Congress of Hematology, Hemotherapy and Cellular Therapy (HEMO) Meeting. The third largest hematology congress in the world, this annual event will take place October 23-26 at the Transamerica Expo Center in São Paulo, Brazil, drawing an anticipated 7,000 attendees.
Leaders from SOHO and ABHH spoke with Blood Cancers Today to discuss the goals and initiatives of the joint symposium, how the meeting came about, and what they hope to accomplish in future meetings.
Joint Symposium Origins
Phillip Scheinberg, MD, PhD, President of SOHO and Chief of Hematology at the Hospital A Beneficência Portuguesa de São Paulo in Brazil, first described how the SOHO and ABHH leaders came together to prepare the joint symposium for takeoff.
After SINTOMA 2018, the Brazilian edition of SOHO and the first SOHO meeting outside of Houston, Dr. Scheinberg and his team began looking for opportunities to increase engagement of SOHO with a Brazilian audience.
“It became about bringing SOHO closer to the things that were happening in Brazil,” he elaborated. After proposing the idea, the SOHO team met with HEMO leaders in February 2024. After a successful meeting, the idea crystallized into an opportunity for the two societies to unite to promote the exchange of research and information on blood cancers.
“We have a great team trying to organize the symposium,” said Silvia Magalhães, MD, PhD, President of HEMO, Director of ABHH, and Professor of Clinical Medicine at the Walter Cantídio University Hospital. “I am very honored to be President of HEMO this year. SOHO makes us very happy, and we expect to have a great partnership this year and in future years.”
Besides SOHO, ABHH also has partnerships with the American Society of Hematology and the European Hematology Association, Dr. Magalhães said. In addition, HEMO 2024 will feature joint sessions with the two societies.
“It’s tradition to have joint symposiums at our meeting,” added Angelo Maiolino, MD, PhD, President of ABHH and Professor of Hematology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. “We are excited to have the first joint symposium with SOHO. It is a great opportunity for us, and we hope to have another one in our upcoming meetings and at the SOHO meetings.”
Goals and Initiatives
The joint symposium will feature expert speakers and include two sessions: a morning session focusing on acute myeloid leukemia (AML), and an afternoon session focusing on myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). Specifically, the symposium will include updates on higher-risk MDS with Amy Dezern, MD, MHS, Professor of Oncology and Director of the Bone Marrow Failure and MDS Program at Johns Hopkins University; updates in lower-risk MDS with Rami Komrokji, MD, Vice Chair of the Malignant Hematology Department at the Moffitt Cancer Center; and recent progress in cellular therapy in acute lymphoblastic leukemia and AML with Jae Park, MD, Chief of Cellular Therapy Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer.
“We want to bring perspectives and innovation,” Dr. Scheinberg said. “The sessions will bring different perspectives of the data, how these experts see this information, and how they apply it to their practice. We’re also doing something really forward looking, [chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy] for AML, which is not something that’s been approved and is in early stages of development. We thought about balancing the present and the future to give perspective about what’s coming in the field.”
Furthermore, Dr. Scheinberg hopes to ensure that each speaker engages with the local audience so that attendees can apply the information to their own practices.
“It’s a different audience, so we always like to brief the speaker so they can understand the local reality of things,” he said. “Otherwise, the speaker may come across as being too distant from the audience’s reality and speak in terms and in ways that are not applicable to what we have here. We’re looking for this proximity for this engagement, and we’re looking for engagement from the audience.”
This applies to geographical aspects such as regulatory access to drugs, Dr. Scheinberg explained, which varies in different parts of the world.
“We’re looking forward to bringing value to the HEMO meeting,” Dr. Scheinberg concluded. “SOHO will learn from it, because they will learn from different physicians from different markets and different parts of the world. That has always been the SOHO mission since its inception in 2012.”
Melissa Badamo is an Assistant Editor for Blood Cancers Today.
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