Chin-Chung Shu

At the 2018 ATS conference, I was very grateful to receive the Best Abstract Award in the APSR-IRSD joint session on 19 May. It was really an honour to attend this session. Professor Kwun Fong and Professor Chunxue Bai were great session hosts.

We looked at the all the best posters and discussed with each author before the mini-oral presentations began. Many excellent researches were presented. I was pleased to present my abstract entitled "The roles of programmed death-1, regulatory T cells and myeloid derived suppressor cells in patients with Mycobacterium avium complex and Mycobacterium abscessus lung disease" after a talk by Professor Marc Moss, the ATS president. Professor Moss presented the award to all the awardees and gave us a lot of encouragement.

In my abstract presentation, I reported my preliminary results regrading immune exhaustion in nontuberculous mycobacteria lung disease (NTN-LD), which has become a clinical concern due to its increasing prevalence. However, the etiology remains unclear at present and we investigated the role of immune exhaustion in the disease. In brief, we enrolled 96 participants, including 46 with Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC)-LD, 23 with M. abscessus (MAB)-LD, and 27 controls. We measured expressions of programmed death-1 (PD-1), regulatory T (Treg) cells on CD4+ lymphocytes and myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) and analyzed their association with clinical features and progression. For the results, the percentage of PD-1 on CD4+ (PD-1+CD4+) lymphocytes was higher in the MAC-LD group, and the MAC-LD and MAB-LD groups had higher levels of MDSCs than the controls. Positive sputum acid fast stains and fibrocavitary radiographic lesions were correlated with elevated expressions of PD-1+CD4+ lymphocytes and Treg cells. The percentage of PD-1+ on CD4+ lymphocytes significantly predicted radiographic progression.

In addition, there were three 10-minute topics reported by Professor Chunxue Bai (China), Professor Chong Jen Yu (Taiwan) and Professor Yoichi Nakanishi (Japan). The three topics focused on lung cancer early detection, discussion and optimal care. The talks were very comprehensive and the audiences had many comments and discussions.

Overall, in this session we did not only learn and discuss the frontier of the pulmonary medicine, but also met the experts in respiratory fields. We appreciated the efforts from every colleague and hope we can contribute more by our research.