Professor Antonio Almeida has been at the forefront of clinical haematology for more than 20 years and last year he became president of the European Hematology Association (EHA). Speaking to Julie Penfold, he shares his plans for his second year as EHA president, key takeaways from June’s EHA Congress and his insights into the future of clinical haematology.
There’s never a dull moment when specialising in the field of haematology, with near-constant clinical developments emerging and an abundance of reasons to be optimistic for the future of patient care and outcomes.
‘Haematology is a very exciting specialty,’ explains Professor António Almeida, head of department at Hospital da Luz in Lisbon, founding dean of Portugal’s Catolica Medical School, and president of the European Hematalogy Association (EHA).
‘I think we are certainly a specialty in which scientific innovation hits the clinical ground very, very fast. And even now, when we know so much about genetic mutations, new treatments and targeted treatments, we’re always discovering new pathways for patients and promising treatment options.’
He adds: ‘Not only are we now targeting the genetic landscape but we’re also targeting all the immunological and all the microenvironments that surround the diseases. It really makes haematology a crest-of-the-wave type of specialty.’
EHA presidency aims and progress
One of Professor Almeida’s main aims when he took up the role of EHA president in 2023 was to foster greater recognition of haematologists throughout Europe. As such, the EHA has been working hard to promote the specialty within the European Union and with national authorities and societies.
‘Haematology is a very diverse subject, and we range from a huge variety of diseases from coagulation to benign to malignant, and from a huge range of activities from clinical to laboratory to research,’ Professor Almeida explains. ‘That’s why it’s really important with this diversity that people are recognised for their specialty.’
To reflect this diversity and demonstrate how the field is evolving, EHA shared a new vision statement at its 2024 congress, alongside the rollout of a new brand identity. The previous iteration of the vision statement, ‘Towards a cure for all blood diseases’, has been adapted and now reads: ‘Towards prevention, cure and quality of life for all patients with blood disorders’.
Professor Almeida explains that it was important for the vision statement to be updated as ‘many of our diseases are becoming chronic and not necessarily cured’. In addition, there was an agreement within the association for it to evolve to reflect ‘what our members would identify with’ in their day-to-day practice when supporting a variety of patients with differing needs and outcomes.
‘We really want to cater for the whole population including those who have chronic disease and the burden of chronic disease. We want to make sure that they really have their needs addressed and that we can look at preventing certain diseases too,’ Professor Almeida says.
‘For example, how can we improve screening, and how can we improve the quality of life of patients [who] are on chronic therapies and have side effects but want to continue living a normal life? How can we ensure their symptoms are mitigated? I think this is how the vision statement really translates into clinical practice. It’s fundamentally addressing the day-to-day needs that haematologists and patients have.’
Professor Almeida championing haematology research
Two other key aims for Professor Almeida’s presidency are to increase EHA members’ involvement in the association and for the EHA to become more active in promoting research. Both of these ambitions have progressed well, Professor Almeida says.
For example, at the EHA Congress in June 2024, more than 18,000 people attended – the biggest number yet for this annual event. ‘What we have seen with the greater participation of members at Congress is really the way forward that we’re working towards – that is to have members more involved and to be able to support them with new research grants and more educational offers, so they feel that the EHA is helping both their careers and practice in haematology,’ Professor Almeida says.
This is particularly important as Professor Almeida notes significant variations in funding for haematology research across Europe. ‘It’s very, very important that we recognise that most of the research grants and most of the research happens in the top five countries and the rest ends up not having much access,’ he explains. ‘Promoting research and facilitating access to research is a big flagship that we’re going to move forward with.’
As part of these efforts, over 3,000 abstracts were submitted for this year’s Congress, which was another record high, and this is something that Professor Almeida is particularly proud of. ‘This meant we had top quality work being presented and the haematology communities are now really looking at EHA Congress as one where they want to present their work,’ he explains. ‘We had presentations of trials that really are changing practice both in malignant oncology and also in benign oncology.’
For Professor Almeida, one of his personal highlights at the Congress was the scope of the presidential sessions. ‘Not only did we have oncology, coagulation and red cell diseases, but we also had a lot of innovation and translational science touching clinical, which was particularly exciting,’ he explains.
Another highlight was a talk on sickle cell disease, looking at how the landscape has changed with new emerging therapies such as anti-sickling agents and antibodies. He recalls: ‘It’s really changing the outlook for patients with sickle cell disease and helping us decide where we should be treating, who we should be treating, and who we should be aiming to change therapies in.’
A session on coagulation looked at how pregnant women can be treated with anticoagulants and what the evidence is, which Professor Almeida found both interesting and helpful. ‘In general haematology, we get lots of referrals about this area so it could make a difference for these patients,’ he says.
Tackling ongoing haematology treatment challenges
While the EHA Congress highlighted significant progress and innovations that have the potential to revolutionise the care of blood disorders, it also underlined the ongoing challenge of managing haematology patient needs as their conditions change and, at times, worsen.
‘How we deal with patients that have relapsed multiple times, and how we deal with patients with chronic disease is now really becoming a big challenge,’ says Professor Almeida. ‘The way that we’re tackling this is really by reducing side effects and by trying more and more to reduce toxicity. For example, stopping certain treatments, if that’s an option; looking at ways of reducing doses; and improving combinations so that patients experience [fewer] side effects from their treatments.’
In chronic myeloid leukaemia, for example, many treatments are available, and each have different side effect profiles. Professor Almeida says clinicians are increasingly tailoring these treatment choices to optimise patients’ care. ‘We can choose which treatment to use based on what the disease presents but also what the patient is most likely to have as a side effect profile and [we can] avoid this to minimise the toxicity,’ he says.
Targeting treatments to specific mutations in certain diseases is also becoming a reality. Professor Almeida says: ‘With this, we are moving more and more towards personalised medicine in which patients can be treated not only for their disease specificities, but also for their own specificities.’
This personalisation of care is only set to improve as the use of technology in haematology is anticipated to really take off. Professor Almeida believes this will include the escalation of using artificial intelligence within clinical trials and using registry and synthetic data to determine the best treatment aims for patients.
‘I think we will also see the advent of new therapies to look at and modulate the immune system to treat all sorts of blood disorders,’ Professor Almeida suggests. ‘We’ve seen this very effectively in CAR T-cells in lymphomas, and I’m sure we will see this in other haematological diseases, and it’ll certainly make a huge difference for patients.’
