Winter-meeting in Oslo

The Norwegian Hypertension Society held its bi-annual scientific meeting in Oslo last week. It was a long time in planning. We set the place and date about two years ago. Sent the first announcement in the spring of 2012 and the call for abstracts in September. Then, at the very deadline, the abstracts and registrations start to trickle in. As with all meetings, we pushed the submission-deadline back a week just to allow people without basic planning skills with pressed schedules to join the meeting and present their data. Then, in as little time as possible, all the abstracts have to be formatted into a program, and session-chairs has to be found and matched so that they have an interest but aren't speaking themselves.

Anyway, we got some 17 free communications, varying from experimental physiology to international research politics, but with a heavy focus on epidemiology and clinical research. There were a couple of talks on the recently very hot topic of renal sympathetic denervation for treatment-resistant hypertension (more on that in another post), some interesting sub-group analyses from the LIFE and SCAST studies, and follow-ups on the now 40-year-old Oslo-Ischemia-Study. More of the program at the society home-page.

In addition, we had two invited lectures on statistics in clinical research. The first on how to develop and validate prognostic models by Ingar Holme, and the second on over-adjustment bias in multiple regression models held by Knut Liestøl. It was a useful repetition of the uses and pitfalls of these two very similar kinds of models that require very different study-designs and give very different information in the end. A common problem is that one tries to get etiological information from prognostic research, i.e. treating a risk-factor as a cause for the chosen end-point even though the observational design makes that impossible. The converse is equally common, i.e. trying to infer prognostic information from etiological studies, such as clinical trials, where the highly selected population makes general conclusions very suspect.

All told, it was a very successful meeting, well worth the time both for planning it, and attending.

Conference-season 2012

For conference-season this year I have two major meetings planned. I have done my share of extra time in the A&E during Easter to be able to go without using up my vacation. First, I am bringing two students to Experimental Biology in San Diego. Then, I am going to London for the 22nd annual meeting of the European Society of Hypertension where I have to present my data myself.

This year both societies are providing iPhone apps with the program: EB2012 and iESH2012. The Experimental Biology is actually available for Android as well. The EB-App works brilliantly, while the ESH-App shows nothing what so ever at the moment. The screen-captures in the app-store looks promising, so I understand it as if the App will be some kind of live-update thingy. That does not really help me now when I try to plan ahead.

Using the brilliant round-trip planner kayak.se I even managed to book a round-trip flight so that I do not have to go back to Sweden in-between or something equally stupid.

Having spent all my time in the A&E and helping put together the posters for EB, I am hopelessly behind in constructing my own poster. If I had had a talk it would have been much simpler. Then I could have kept preparing and changing it until the last minute, or at least the day before. Now I have to have time to print it before-hand.

So, maybe I should not sit here blogging. I will, however, try to report something from the meetings once I am there.

Non-report from the scientific meeting of the Norwegian Hypertension Society

In the Norwegian Hypertension Society (no: Norsk hypertensjonsforening) we have two major events: The CME-course on hypertension, and the scientific winter meeting. They are held every other year. As the secretary I have been holding all sorts of strings: announcements, registration, and such. Then I was supposed to lead a session and hold a presentation, and finally I was going to meet old friends and collaborators and have good time. All in all it was supposed to be a brilliant meeting.

Then a snow storm hit the Uppsala-Stockholm region. My taxi was 20 minutes late, but that turned out not to be a problem because boarding was 30 minutes late. After spending almost two hours on the airplane we were told that the flight was cancelled. Re-booking was impossible, there were 300 people before me in line. Just buying a new ticket on line didn't work. I tried probably ten or fifteen times and it always said that the ticket couldn't be booked.

Anyway, I heard that the meeting was a success. We had the honour of the first presentation of the Scandinavian Candesartan Acute Stroke Trial (SCAST) by Else Sandset. They showed no benefit of strict blood pressure control after acute stroke. It was published the same day in Lancet. This was by no means the only exciting new finding presented, but I shan't bore you too much.

After the scientific meeting there followed the annual meeting of the society where I stood for re-election. I got to continue as secretary in spite of not being there and having moved back to Sweden. Then I missed the dinner.

All this followed last year's failure to hold a CME-course in Trondheim because of the eruption of a volcano on Iceland.

How un-lucky can you be, really?

Saturday mix

Madicken going for the ball.

In Sweden it's very much a tradition that you're only allowed candy on Saturdays. There's a (or several probably) special bag of assorted sweets called Saturday mix. In honour of this staple of my childhood I'm going to post all sorts of shit here today.

Friday provided some really exciting new science. I was writing my abstract for ESH 2010 (to which you should go, deadline on Jan. 15th). When my pathologist (who I keep in a box) sent me a message on facebook and said that she had a surprise for me. Just then the abstract went from being a good abstract to being an exciting abstract. If you come to Oslo, I'll tell you (or show you on the poster).


My desk at home as it looks when I am analysing data and writing abstracts all at once. It always looks like that but that just an ugly truth.

Then I had a really good chat with a post-doc from a lab where I would like to work. With some encouragement I sent an e-mail off, and lo and behold, got a swift and guardedly postitive answer from the PI.

So, today I'm in a good mood and fixed the first batch of pictures. They're not as good as I would like them, and I already missed two days, but they do make the blog prettier. I'm all for pretty blogs.


Madicken welcoming my fiancee back home.

Have a nice week end, don't eat too much candy, and remember to register for ESH2010.

Michael

Report from SPS annual meeting in Uppsala

This was meant to be a timely post, but that is apparently not my forte. It was also meant to include some interesting science, but I thought it was time to get this out, seeing that the next meeting is just around the corner.

Now it is a week couple of weeks month since the annual meeting of the Scandinavian Physiological Society, which was held in Uppsala, Sweden this year. The meeting provided the best renal sessions I have visited so far at a SPS meeting. This obviously does honour to the Kidney Resösh Group [sic] in Uppsala.

By far the best part of the meeting was the extra curricular activities. I got to meet up with many of my old friends and colleagues in Uppsala and then we got drunk together.

So thanks to everyone. I hope to see you again next year, maybe already at Experimental Biology.

/Michael