News from the Medium-Sized Arteries Working Group (MSA WG) Virtual Spring Meeting 2022

The Medium-Sized Arteries Working Group (MSA WG) held its Spring Meeting on Thursday, May 5th, 2022, which has been online for the past two years. Dr. Michael Frank (MSA-WG Chair) chaired the meeting, which was attended by 7 healthcare professionals, as well as the European Patient Advocacy Group (ePAG) Co-Chair and Deputy Co-Chair for MSA: Charissa Frank and Eva Collado, and additional MSA patient advocate: Claire Guerrier.

The meeting began with a brief overview of the Clinical Patient Management System (CPMS) for new members, followed by discussions of issues and suggestions for navigating the system. Then there were updates on human resources for VASCERN, including the hiring of a Scientific Project Officer to support the Rare Diseases WGs, and the next bridging grant proposal accepted by the European Commission.

There was also discussion about future webinars on vascular Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (vEDS) and pills of knowledge videos. The group talked about the upcoming moodle e-learning platform for doctors, patients, and the general public.

Finally, the group discussed their consensus statement program and formed sub-groups to work on it. They talked about possible translations in various EU languages. The meeting concluded with action points for the group’s monthly meeting.

This meeting was quite productive, and we are excited about their future projects! We appreciate all of the MSA-WG members’ efforts and contributions.