The 14^th World Conference of the International Society for the Study of Hypertension in Pregnancy was held in Vienna, Austria, November 2004.

The conference was four days long.  Day one was dedicated to administrative meetings that were by invitation only.  This was okay with us since the long trip and time change left us exhausted. 

Thanks to the generosity of Jennifer's parents, we were able to bring our children.  Jennifer and I took turns attending the sessions.  The children were wonderful and were seen about the attendees doing their homework in the hotel lobby.  They were a reminder to those in attendance why this conference is so important.  It felt very natural for them to be there.  We are a very family-oriented group and our volunteers' children are about during our conference and work sessions.

There were two general sessions per day and during the other times, there were about ten concurrent sessions going on at the same time.  There were over 400 doctors in the general session representing over 50-60 countries.  We attended those sessions that featured HELLP Syndrome first and if there were none in a particular time slot, we chose something of interest. 

As you all know, HELLP Syndrome is considerably more rare than preeclampsia, so there were not as many sessions specifically on HELLP Syndrome. 

There was a considerable amount of debate in all of the sessions, but especially the HELLP Sessions.  I have a better understanding why there has been so little progress on HELLP Syndrome.  I learned that many doctors do not agree on what lab values actually constitute when a woman goes into HELLP Syndrome.  I was happy to see that there is a push to come up with a common definition for HELLP Syndrome.  Dr. Baha Sibai, presenter of Management of hypertension in pregnancy session, is one of the doctors who has attempted to define HELLP Syndrome lab values. 

I learned that there is more research going on around HELLP Syndrome than I realized.  There are some early "promising" results around the use of vitamin C and E and the use of steroids to delay the early delivery of the baby to save the mother.  Apparently, the steroids improve platelet count which buys more time for the baby to develop and can stabilize the mother so she can be safely transported to a tertiary care facility.

TO BE CONTINUED…