PALERMO (ITALPRESS) – The Saracen Sands Hotel in Isola delle Femmine was held the 12th edition of the National Congress of the Iphnet Association (Italian Pulmonary Hypertension Network) organized in collaboration with ISMETT. The event represents the main moment of comparison of the Italian network of centres dedicated to the diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary hypertension.
The aim of the Congress is to integrate evidence from clinical studies, real life data and the nascent National Register of lung hypertension, favouring a high-profile scientific comparison of progress in the disease, new therapeutic targets and redefinition of decisional algorithms, as well as the relationship between pulmonary hypertension and chronic pneumopathy.
“Iphnet is a network of experienced pulmonary hypertension centers – says Patrizio Vitulo, Scientific Director of Congress and Head of the Pneumology Service of ISMETT –. He participated in speedy pivotages that led to the registration of innovative drugs; the latest Zenith study gave rise to the registration of an innovative drug that seems to change the natural history of the disease in some patients. The national Iphnet network has generated many independent studies that have entered the patient’s risk measurement and are in the international guidelines: Italy is in the front row. The novelty of 2027 is that Iphnet managed to set, together with the Higher Institute of Health, the National Register of Pulmonary Hypertension”.
Palermo aims to be at the forefront in the treatment of the disease, through the realization of a scientific pole that will rise in Carini, at the gates of the capital: this – says Angelo Luca, director of ISMETT and managing director of UPMC Italy – will be “constituted by a highly complex research hospital and one of the largest research centers in Europe, that is the Centro Ri.Med. We are talking about a state-of-the-art infrastructure, there are of course important challenges to face: on the one hand the ability to attract the best scientists to drive the research center and produce a transnational research, so that it has fallen on the territory in terms of products and industrial development; on the other a reorientation of research, which in Italy too often stops at scientific publications and which instead needs to go further and turn into care for patients. To work at the center will be about two thousand researchers, moreover, will be operating approximately six thousand people between direct and indirect work: surely there will be an important economic fall on the territory, with an annual added value of 500 million euros”.
At the centre of the Congress, clinical trials that – as Fabrizio Galliccia of AIFA explains – “is a very important element in the care of rare diseases, because often for patients is the only possibility of cure. Attracting experiments in Italy has become fundamental: as AIFA we are making a huge effort to bring experimentation in Italy, because it would mean having a chance to cure a patient who often has no alternative. We are in an international panorama: this clinical trial course must be accompanied by normal practice, so all hospitals must be equipped to offer this opportunity to patients, especially those with rare diseases that have no therapeutic alternatives.”.
One of the issues to be resolved in the treatment of rare diseases, according to Roberto Poscia, referring to the coordination of rare diseases of the Lazio Region is “the uniformity of the taking into account throughout the national territory: it is not only an Italian problem. Unfortunately, access to innovative therapies is very often dependent on the patient’s residence: what we are doing is trying to standardize the patient’s taking paths to give everyone the same opportunity to access innovative therapies. Rare diseases are eight thousand and only 8% of these have a therapeutic possibility: access to new treatments and innovative therapies is very important for patients.”.
Photo source Italpress
(ITALPRESS).
