General Information
The Fourth International Congress on the Systemic Autoinflammatory Diseases will be held at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel and Conference Center from Sunday evening, November 6, through Thursday noon, November 10, 2005. The Conference Center is conveniently located in the suburban Washington, DC area. Earlier Congresses in this distinguished series have been held in Jerusalem, Antalya, and Montpellier. The upcoming Congress has been timed to allow international participants to coordinate this meeting with the 69th Annual Meeting of the American College of Rheumatology, which will be held in San Diego from Saturday, November 12, through Thursday, November 17.
The Fourth International Congress will focus on the clinical features, molecular genetics, and treatment of a number of inherited disorders of inflammation. These illnesses, which are sometimes termed the systemic autoinflammatory diseases, are characterized by episodes of seemingly unprovoked inflammation, but without the production of high-titer autoantibodies or antigen-specific T-cells. There are a number of autoinflammatory diseases that are inherited as Mendelian traits, including:
- Familial Mediterranean fever (FMF)
- TNF receptor-associated periodic syndrome (TRAPS)
- Hyperimmunoglobulinemia D with periodic fever syndrome (HIDS)
- Neonatal-onset multisystem inflammatory disease (NOMID; also known as chronic infantile neurologic, cutaneous, and articular syndrome, or CINCA)
- Familial cold autoinflammatory syndrome (FCAS)
- Muckle-Wells syndrome (MWS)
- The syndrome of pyogenic arthritis with pyoderma gangrenosum and acne (PAPA)
- Blau syndrome
Several other disorders with a more complex pattern of inheritance, such as juvenile chronic arthritis and adult Still's disease, will also be discussed at the meeting.
The overriding goal of the November 2005, meeting will be to foster a broad, synergistic approach to these illnesses. The program of invited talks and presentations (both oral and poster) of submitted abstracts will reflect that vision. Sessions will cover a number of areas, including:
- Clinical features, natural history, and diagnostic criteria
- Mutation detection and genotype-phenotype correlations
- Functional and structural studies of the proteins encoded by autoinflammatory disease genes
- Molecular pathways of innate immunity, including NF-κB activation, cytokine production, and leukocyte apoptosis
- Animal models of autoinflammatory disease
- The dramatic advances in the treatment of these diseases
- Complex disorders such as systemic-onset juvenile idiopathic arthritis, adult-onset Still's disease, Behcet's disease, and Crohn's disease
- Workshops on nomenclature, standards of genetic testing, patient registries, and coordination of multicenter treatment protocols
