Each year, many attendees come to the annual American Thoracic Society’s International Conference for the latest clinical trial information because findings may have immediate or near-immediate implications for their practices.

With 21 sessions addressing topics as diverse as the connection between the urban environment and childhood asthma to using satellite remote sensors to study the environment and disease, ATS 2010 will be no exception. The one-hour noon sessions will be presented on Sunday, May 16, Monday, May 17 and Wednesday, May 19.

During one clinical trial session on Sunday, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) will report the outcomes from their SUPPORT trial “The Surfactant Positive Airway Pressure and Pulse Oximetry Trial in Extremely Low Birth Weight (ELBW) Infants.”

“This is the largest study to date that is assessing early ventilation strategies and oximetry targets in extremely pre-term infants on outcomes of survival without bronchopulmonary dysplasia,” said session chair Carol J. Blaisdell, M.D., medical officer at the NHLBI’s Division of Lung Diseases. “Over 1,300 infants were enrolled through the Eunice Kennedy Shriver NICHD Neonatal Research Network (NRN), with co-funding from the NHLBI. This study is likely to impact care of the most immature pre-term infants.”

Rosemary Higgins M.D., program scientist for the NICHD’s NRN and Maternal Lifestyles Study, will serve as co-chair of this NHLBI-sponsored session.

A Wednesday symposium also sponsored by the NHLBI will look at “Candidate Gene Association Resource (CARe): Genetic Associations for Lung, Sleep and Obesity Phenotypes.”

“Three years ago, the NHLBI, recognizing that very large sample sizes are needed for discovering genetic variants that predispose to chronic diseases, assembled a consortium of cohort studies that had collected extensive, well-characterized cardiovascular, pulmonary, sleep and blood phenotypes, and supported these cohorts to pool resources for the purposes of improving the power of genetic association studies,” said session chair Susan Redline, M.D., M.P.H., professor of pediatrics, medicine, epidemiology and biostatistics at Case Western Reserve University’s Center for Clinical Investigation in Shaker Heights, Ohio.

“Using a novel collaborative model, hundreds of phenotypes were shared and harmonized and genotyping was performed centrally on approximately 50,000 individuals. A series of working groups were assembled—with representatives from a large number of institutions with varied expertise—to analyze these data. The ATS symposium will present some of the representative work of this collaboration, specifically relating to lung function, sleep apnea and obesity,” Dr. Redline said.

Michael Twery, Ph.D, director and branch chief of the NHLBI’s National Center on Sleep Disorders Research in Bethesda, will serve as session co-chair.

The “Findings from Inner-City Anti-IgE Therapy for Asthma (ICATA)” will also be shared on Wednesday. Sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the session will be co-chaired by Peter J. Gergen, M.D., M.P.H., medical officer of the NIAID’s Division of Allergy, Immunology and Transplantation and Alkis Togias, M.D., section chief of the NIAID’s Asthma and Inflammation Section.

“The ICATA evaluated the impact of adding omalizumab to guidelines base-therapy in moderate to severe persistent asthmatics,” Dr. Gergen said. “Some very interesting findings dealing with allergen sensitization/exposure and the fall increase in asthma exacerbations will be presented.”

In addition, a new composite score, the Asthma Burden Index (ABI), will be described, he said.

“The ABI incorporates both the level of control achieved and the amount of treatment needed to achieve that level of control.”