EAHAD Conference 2025

I was fortunate in February 2025 to attend the 18th annual congress of the European association for haemophilia and allied disorders (EAHAD) in Milan, Italy, and I am very grateful to HaemSTAR for their support via the HaemSTAR ISTH Legacy Fund award. 

 I have previously heard very positive things about the EAHAD congress, and having never had an opportunity before to attend, I was really pleased when my abstract was accepted for an oral presentation. The congress is held over four days, one of which is dedicated to allied health professionals, and apart from the satellite symposia, the remainder of the programme is in one (very large!) conference hall. This means there is a real feeling of inclusion, with everyone attending all sessions, and no deliberating about which session to attend, and which to miss. The programme was cohesive, comprehensive, and extremely educational. There was a breadth of sessions focused on haemophilia, from the opportunities and challenges of novel therapies and the latest on gene therapies to the increasing issues around frailty and the psychosocial aspects of coping with ageing and associated complications. There were excellent talks on Mim8, Efanesoctocog Alfa, SPK-8011, Marstacimab and other therapies. One session of talks was under the heading “A century of von Willebrand disease;” I really enjoyed the practical and educational content, covering diagnosis, epidemiology, optimal treatment, and novel therapies. The range of projects presented as posters was also incredible, and due to the compactness of the congress there was plenty of opportunity in breaks to browse these.

I presented in the SLAM session, about a project I had been working on with haemophilia and respiratory colleagues at The Royal London Hospital, on our screening and surveillance pathway for patients with Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome (HPS) at risk of the invariable fatal complication pulmonary fibrosis. I was incredibly nervous for two main reasons before my talk. Firstly, the room was HUGE, by far the largest audience I have presented to so far, and secondly there were very few talks on platelet disorders across the congress, and I was unsure how it would be received. I was, therefore, happy to both remember what I wanted to say and take some interesting and challenging questions from the audience. In the break that followed I also spoke with several attendees about the importance of this screening and how we might collaborate, given the rarity of HPS.

 The penultimate evening of the conference was the networking event at the beautiful Polazzo Bovara in Milan, a lovely opportunity to catch up with familiar faces and discuss clinical practice and research with haematologists from across Europe. I had a fantastic time at EAHAD 2025, both from the perspective of the intense educational and scientific content as well as time spent with colleagues and meeting new people. My only regret, not seeing any of Milan….another time!