Course Category: Expert Talk

This talk focuses on lung cancer screening tools, investigations and monitoring within primary care, as well as new approaches to lung nodules, including robotic bronchoscopy.

Learning objectives:

1. Understand screening approaches
2. Know when and how to investigate within primary care
3. Understand which patients need referral to secondary care

Dr Christopher Orton Background

Dr Christopher Orton graduated from St George’s Hospital Medical School with MBBS and a BSc in Biochemistry and Immunology. After completing his general medical and respiratory specialty training in London, he has worked at prestigious teaching hospitals, including Hammersmith Hospital, St Mary’s Hospital, St George’s Hospital, and the Royal Brompton Hospital. Moreover, dr Orton has completed a PhD with Imperial College London on the effects of epithelial resurfacing with liquid nitrogen using Metered Cryospray in patients with COPD. Dr Orton’s NHS base is the Royal Brompton Hospital, where he is a member of the lung cancer, and interventional bronchoscopy unit.

Professor Michael Polkey, Interim Director of Research and Care Group Chair for Lung Failure, Royal Brompton Hospital.

With the second longest commute in the NHS, Professor Poley works for 8 weeks per year in the NHS Highland where he provides respiratory services to Lochaber, Skye and Points West.

Professor Michael Polkey Background

Focusing on how to diagnose chronic cough in children and decide who needs investigations within primary care.

1. Prolonged cough in children – who needs investigating?
2. Type of cough
3. Diagnosis

Dr Ian Balfou-Lynn Background

Dr Ian Balfour-Lynn is a consultant in paediatric respiratory medicine at Royal Brompton and Harefield hospitals.

Dr Ian Balfour-Lynn specialises in all aspects of paediatric respiratory medicine and performs all complex investigations including flexible bronchoscopy as a diagnostic tool. He is a specialist in severe infant wheezing, severe asthma, cystic fibrosis and recurrent chest infections.

This talk by professor Mona Bafadhel focuses on eosinophilis in COPD as a major healthcare burden and cause of mortality worldwide.

Learning Objectives

1. Eosinophilis in COPD
2. COPD as a major healthcare burden and cause of mortality worldwide
3. Exacerbations are a hallmark of COPD
4. Damage from exacerbations goes beyond the lungs
5. Biology-led approaches in COPD
6. Eosinophilic and non-eosinophilic COPD: Blood
7. COPD and Asthma
8. Monoclonal antibodies in eosinophilic COPD?

Professor Mona Bafadhel Background

Mona Bafadhel holds the positions of Chair in Respiratory Medicine at King’s College London and Director of the recently established King’s Centre for Lung Health. Additionally, she works as a consultant respiratory physician at the Guy’s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. Her areas of interest in both clinical and research are asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). With a strong desire to use clinical research to better patient outcomes, Mona is a leading international academic in the field of respiratory medicine. Her research on COVID-19 and COPD has changed therapeutic practices that impact millions of people worldwide. The Royal College of Physicians bestowed to Mona the Goulstonian Lectureship in 2018 in recognition of her achievements in the clinical sciences. She is the first woman from an ethnic minority and just the fourth overall.

This talks by Professor Nicholas Hopkinson covers COPD as a structural violence.

Professor Nicholas Hopkinson background

Nicholas Hopkinson is professor of respiratory medicine at Imperial College and an honorary consultant physician at Royal Brompton Hospital. He qualified in medicine at Cambridge University and the London Hospital Medical College and went on to train in respiratory and general internal medicine at St George’s Hospital and St Thomas’ Hospital.

Professor Hopkinson is clinical lead for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) at Royal Brompton Hospital. This includes systematic evaluation of patients within a multidisciplinary team and addressing issues such as: hypoxia, recurrent exacerbations, alpha one antitrypsin deficiency, early onset disease.

His major research interest looks at the causes of exercise limitation in patients with COPD, and his publications have looked at the: effect of pulmonary rehabilitation, influence of genetic polymorphisms, the effect of dietary nitrate supplementation, lung volume reduction techniques for emphysema, singing for lung health as an approach to relieve breathlessness in COPD and other conditions.

Working with the NW London Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research (CLAHRC), Professor Hopkinson has developed a more systematic Care Bundle for COPD patients as they are discharged. Addittionally, he has published work on tobacco uptake among children and in support of tobacco control measures, such as standardised packaging and smoke-free legislation.

Moreover, the NIHR, Medical Research Council, Wellcome Trust, European Union, British Lung Foundation, and Moulton Foundation have all funded professor Hopkinson’s work.

This talk by Dr Jamilah Meghji covers “the intersection of TB and Chronic Lung Diseases in LMIC”

Dr Jamilah Meghji Background 

Dr Jamilah Meghji is a Consultant Respiratory Physician in Cambridge, UK, with a special interest in tuberculosis and respiratory infection. Her research has used mixed methods to describe the burden and impact of post-TB lung disease on the lives and livelihoods of TB survivors in East Africa. She has an interest in the diagnosis and management of TB co-morbidities, including chronic respiratory diseases, within TB services in low-resource settings.