| EDF Newsletter 2023

The 27th EDF Annual Meeting is planned to take place on January 25-27, 2024 as a face-to-face meeting in the Hotel Suisse Majestic in Montreux, Switzerland. The program starts with our traditional plenary guest lectures. This year Prof. Gioacchino Natoli from the European Institute of Oncology in Milan will spe ak about “epithelial immunological memory in health and disease”, followed by a lecture on “diet and cancer cell regulation” by Dr. Salvador Aznar Benitah from the IRB Barcelona. Further plenary lectures will follow on Friday afternoon with Dr. Richard Gallo from the University of California, San Diego, speaking about the “immune system – microbiome interaction in the skin” and Prof. Emmanuella Guenova, CHUV Lausanne, focusing on “a vision on the future of dermatology from a young academic”. Two well-established highlights will be our interactive forums. The first one on “from precision diagnosis to precision therapy”, chaired by Prof. Kaisa Tasanen-Määttä and Prof. Nick Reynolds, including Prof. Michel Gilliet discussing the “individualized inflammatory skin diseases diagnosis”, Prof. Christina Mitteldorf who will look into the “role of dermatopathology in precision medicine” and Prof. Alberto Corsini talking about “silencing the RNA to treat human diseases: the inclisirna case”. This session will be closed with an interactive discussion. The second forum moderated by Prof. Marie Aleth Richard and Prof. Alexander Navarini, will be on “artificial intelligence in medicine”. Prof. Victor Savevski will speak about “developing an AI department in a research hospital”, while Prof. Joseph Malvehy and Prof. Saverio d’Amico will discuss “when and how to use AI in dermatology?” and the “medical engineering supported by AI”, respectively. The program will be complemented by industry symposia and updates from the commissions groups. We can certainly look forward to interesting and interactive discussions on these stimulating topics. To register and make hotel reservations, please refer to the EDF homepage:
https://www.formoffice.com/en/Public/Index/6283 (registration deadline October 1, 2023).

| Euroderm Excellence

Since 2003, the EDF has been organizing the Euroderm Excellence course for residents in dermatovenereology. The renowned course is designed to promote and enhance the highest educational training for 4-year dermatology residents from all across Europe. The EDF Euroderm Excellence is the only course for dermatology residents at a European level with outstanding speakers and opinion leaders in the field of dermatology and venereology.

After the successful implementation of the EDF Euroderm Excellence 2022 with the title “a Journey from clinics to molecular biology and new technologies”, which was conducted in Rome on November 15-18, we intend to conduct the 20th EDF Euroderm Excellence course live in Vienna on November 28-December 1, 2023. This year’s course will focus on the “promotion of the highest standard of skin patient care in Europe”. Excellent candidates have already been selected (100 participants out of 203 applications in total) and the program is final. We are grateful for the precious support of our two sponsors Lilly and Bristol Myers Squibb. For more information, kindly visit the course website: www.eurodermexcellence.com

| EDF Advanced Euroderm Excellence Program

After the successful launch of the EDF Advanced Euroderm Excellence course in 2021, the EDF Board decided to permanently integrate the course as an integral part of the EDF activities. Twenty carefully selected participants from the original EDF Euroderm Excellence course, who are promising future opinion leaders in our specialty, are invited to participate in this course. The goal is to select the best young dermatologists in Europe and offer them specific training and mentoring to better prepare them as future leaders within the dermatological field. Renowned speakers from all over Europe are invited to offer in-depth training on how to successfully run a dermatological department in the future. Participants are provided a training in areas such as managing a clinical department, risk management, role of global dermatology, compliance regulations, career planning, etc.

| White Book

The 6th edition the EDF White Book was updated in 2020 and included new chapters on important topics in dermatovenereology are included such as specific infections, body dysmorphic syndrome and psychologic impact of skin diseases or nutritional deficiencies and skin disorders. The EDF White Book describes in general the burden of skin and sexually transmitted infections within Europe and shows how provision of care and costs vary across the continent. A directory of national dermatological associations, European dermatology societies and patient organizations, is included to provide a complete and valuable resource that will be useful to everyone involved in health care policy decision making. The EDF White Book is targeted to a broad spectrum of policy makers including medical schools and hospital administrators, as well as politicians, health care providers, physicians belonging to different medical disciplines, the pharmaceutical and medico-technical industry, patient support groups and not at least dermatovenereologists. Currently, the EDF Board is evaluating if a new digital version of the EDF White Book is feasible in the long term.

| European Guidelines

A comprehensive update of the living psoriasis guidelines has been completed, with some chapters still undergoing external review. Notably, significant changes have been made to the chapter on “viral hepatitis: When and how should psoriasis patients be screened for viral hepatitis and how should patients who test positive be managed?” This update was conducted in collaboration with the European Association for the Study of the Liver. Additionally, a new chapter on deucravaticinib has been added. We will notify you once all these updates are available online on the website for you to read.

The first update of the atopic eczema guideline was completed by the end of 2023, and the changes have been integrated into the online version https://www.guidelines.edf.one/guidelines/atopic-ezcema.

The update has also been published early-online as a letter to the editor in JEADV.

Furthermore, a comprehensive and thorough update of the lichen sclerosus guideline has been carried out. The updated guideline has recently been published on the EDF website. You can access it here: 
https://www.guidelines.edf.one//uploads/attachments/cljzpyj9r1hqqyxjrdbpy2szy-lichen-sclerosus-guideline.pdf

The Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership project entitled “Harmonized European Dermato- Venereology Undergraduate blended LEARNing Implementation and Training” led by Professors Harald Gollnick, Gunter Burg and Martine Bagot was successfully completed at the end of 2021. Since then, with the support of the EDF, yearly updates of the long version webbook are ongoing. For 2024 update there will be 6 new collaborators joining the current author team. We would also encourage other EDF members with an interest in undergraduate education, who would like to actively participate in this project, to get involved.

In order to maintain and promote high quality education and training, the EDF has been working to integrate undergraduate teaching activities with an electronic platform: Cyberderm (Dermatology Online with Interactive Technology, https://www.cyberderm.net) developed by Prof. Gunter Burg and now run by Prof. Alexander Navarini. We currently launched the 5th version of the website including pigment-rich skin clinical images and an update of Cyberderm games, which is currently undergoing a content review. Apart from German, French, English, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Chinese, the educational chapters are now also available in Lithuanian. Cyberderm was also presented to the ILDS Executive Committee in June 2023 and received positive feedback. We are now planning next steps with ILDS as additional and future collaborator.

Geneskin is a comprehensive online database and website dedicated to rare genetic diseases of the skin (genodermatoses). Its primary objective is to disseminate knowledge about these conditions, aiming to improve their diagnosis, treatment, and overall management. The Geneskin website serves as a valuable resource in supporting individuals affected by genodermatoses, their families and healthcare professionals responsible for their care. By providing access to state-of-the-art information, it facilitates a deeper understanding of these complex disorders and expansion of knowledge in the field, thereby fostering progress in research and therapeutic approaches, ultimately improving the lives of those afflicted by these challenging conditions.

The Geneskin database encompasses a wide array of rare genetic skin diseases, such as Ectodermal Dysplasias, Connective Tissue Diseases, Epithelial Adhesion Disorders and DNA Repair Disorders, among others.

The website is maintained by a European Dermatology Forum (EDF) steering committee, chaired by Prof. Johann Bauer, supervising regular updates and appointing coordinators for disease groups.