ISTH 2026 and the whole-istic approach in haematology

Thanks to the support from HaemSTAR I was able to join the ISTH 2026 in Paris and present the findings of MOM-ITP, a UK national audit on the maternal and neonatal outcomes of ITP. It took three years, 32 NHS Trusts and 98 clinicians working together to produce some meaningful endpoints that will inform our clinical decisions based on real-world data.  

While heading to the ISTH venue the morning prior to my presentation, I could hardly believe that such a large crowd of people were enthusiastically crossing the gates at 8 am looking forward to five full days of talks and presentations in this field. ISTH is a truly phenomenal convention of all people interested in thrombosis and haemostasis worldwide. I had the opportunity to listen to talks of highly esteemed experts such as Dr Philip Wells (creator of the Well’s criteria for DVT!), meet patient experts, pharmaceutical industry decision-makers and researchers who came from all over the world to discuss what their work, priorities and interpretation of the current landscape is, and last but not least spend some time with existing and meet new colleagues. 

Amongst many innovative talks, the lecture of Professor Münzel on pollution, climate change and cardiovascular disease was particularly memorable for me. It put the environmental factors, oxidative stress caused by the climate change and different forms of pollutants in the centre-stage of the aetiology and as a significant target for intervention in biology and medicine.  

My take on his talk was that holistic medicine is much more than including the psycho-socio-economic factors into patient care. It’s considering the patient as part of our natural environment which is also diseased and all of us patients and doctors alike at a make-or-break moment.  

We were presented with the scientific evidence that the climate change is not a risk of future morbidity and mortality but a current one and that studying and intervening at that pathophysiological step of the disease process and the thrombosis process is paramount.  

My take home message from this talk was that we should expand on our holistic approach, become actively engaged with how human-nature interactions impact on the course of the diseases we study and deal with, how our scientific and clinical practice affects the ecosystem and play our part in nurturing and sustaining it than simply be a part of it.