MPD Foundation President, Bob Rosen, attends 2004 ASH Conference in San Diego, California

I attended the Saturday sessions of the ASH conference in San Diego and wanted to make a brief report of my impressions. It was held in the beautiful convention center on the San Diego waterfront and it seemed like the turnout was huge, in the many thousands. One of the MPD Sessions, in a room that must have held over 2000, was completely filled to standing room only. The session was more heavily attended than other sessions I saw. It would appear that MPDs are hot in the hematological community.

There was a presentation on the use of Gleevec in CML that was summarized in the lead article of the Wall St. Journal, section B on Monday. There are many successors to Gleevec that are in the pipeline with the promise of being even more effective than Gleevec.

I heard Dr. Tefferi report on the work that Mayos is doing with regard to MF Research. This was gratifying because the MPD Foundation is funding some of this work. There was a lively presentation by Dr. Tefferi and Dr. Spivak regarding the desirability of using Red Cell Mass tests to diagnose PV.

I also met with members of the MPD International Consortium which is still waiting approval on a major NIH research grant.

In general, there appears to be a great deal of renewed interest in the MPDs in the research community.