Type 1 Diabetes, Technology, and Kids
A symposium on Friday will feature four new clinical trials of automated insulin delivery systems for people with type 1 diabetes, the “US Advanced Hybrid Closed-Loop (AHCL) Pivotal Safety Study, FLAIR — An NIDDK-Sponsored International, Multi-site Randomized Crossover Trial of AHCL vs 670G,” the New Zealand AHCL randomized crossover trial, and the Horizon Automated Glucose Control System pre-pivotal trial data.
“Closed-loop devices are getting a lot of traction ... These trials will continue to advance the notion that these devices will narrow the glycemic range, prevent hypoglycemia, and improve quality of life because people don’t have to pay as much attention mentally to the management of the diabetes,” Florez said.
He added that although these trials “have been in the works for a while and they’re not big surprises, they continue to build a body of evidence suggesting that these devices will be part of our armamentarium in the very near future.”
And on Saturday, a debate will address the somewhat controversial question of whether continuous glucose monitoring in type 2 diabetes is worth the cost.
There will also be plenty of pediatric diabetes material presented this year, too.
On Sunday, there will be new insights from the Restoring Insulin Secretion (RISE) study, which examines prediabetes and type 2 diabetes in youth, and on Monday, 20-year data from the SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth Study will be reported.
And on Monday, the most recent findings from The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young (TEDDY) study of environmental triggers of type 1 diabetes will be presented.
All-Virtual Meeting: Pros and Cons
The all-virtual meeting format will have pluses and minuses, Eckel predicts.
Advantages include the fact that attendees don’t have to physically run from room to room or make difficult decisions about conflicting sessions.
“The fact that this meeting will be taking place in reality in terms of the timing of sessions, one can transition from one room to another in a matter of seconds if you want to,” he noted.
However, he observed, “a lot of interesting things happen in the hallways at meetings. Colleagues from around the world get together and knock heads about their ongoing research and potential collaborations can be formulated.
“Opportunities to engage with one another beyond the formality of the meeting is going to be lost to some extent.”
What’s more, the sessions will all be in Central US (Chicago) time, “So if you live in Thailand, the session may be occurring at a time when you’re in bed. If you want to see it live, then you’ve got to get up. Then you can ask a question.”
On the other hand, since all the content will be available online for 90 days, “if you want to stay in bed and you live in Thailand, you can get up a week from now during the day and log into a session you may have missed.”
Indeed, Florez said, “One silver lining of this virtual conference is that we’ve lowered the barriers for people to attend. It’s much more global. We’ve had an amazing influx of new registrants who were not planning on coming and were not registered for the original meeting and have registered since [more than 10,000 at the time of writing], and they continue to pile in.”
“We plan to reach people we haven’t reached before. The big question for ADA moving forward will be how much this can become a permanent feature, where even if we do it in person in the future, maybe we offer at least some virtual options so that our reach can go farther.”
Eckel has reported sitting on the scientific advisory board for a Kowa Company trial of pemafibrate and on an advisory board for Novo Nordisk. Florez has reported being a speaker for Novo Nordisk and receiving an honorarium from ADA for chairing the conference planning committee.
This article originally appeared on Medscape.com.