What’s New in Infectious Diseases? Takeaways from IDWeek 2023

Announcer:
You’re listening to Clinician’s Roundtable on ReachMD. On this episode, we’ll discuss the new developments in clinical science for infectious diseases that were featured at the 2023 ID Week Conference with Dr. Jeffrey Freiberg. Dr. Freiberg is an Instructor in the Division of Infectious Diseases within the Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He is also a Member of the Vanderbilt Institute for Infection, Immunology and Inflammation. Let’s hear from him now.

Dr. Freiberg:
So the title of the session I helped develop is “What's Hot in ID in Clinical Science,” and this is really focusing on clinical trials primarily and then also some emerging infections that have become important. Everything covered from last year's IDWeek in October up through this year's IDWeek, looking at a number of different prominent trials all across the spectrum of infectious diseases.

So in terms of what's new in the field of infectious diseases, after several years of really being dominated by COVID-19 in the field, we're back to a number of studies looking at all different aspects of infectious disease, looking not only at different diseases, but also different approaches to combating infections, whether it's strategies to prevent infections, such as we see with the RSV vaccines that have now been approved, new antibiotics that have been brought to phase three trials and are getting FDA approval or close to getting FDA approval, looking at new approaches using older antibiotics and different combinations, so a lot of exciting things going on on the ID front.

I think in going through the literature from the past year to put together this talk, one of the things that really stood out is just how much diversity there is and what the field of infectious disease covers and how many different ways people can get involved in clinical research to really make a difference. We had all different types of studies that we covered, including vaccine studies, new antibiotics, new treatment techniques using older drugs, but then also the fact that this is a field that’s constantly changing; we just went through the period with the COVID-19 pandemic coming out of nowhere to really surprise everyone. But there’s still other emerging threats.

One of the big things that we covered in this talk this year is the fact that this is the first time in 20 years that we've had cases of locally acquired malaria in the U.S., and it was not just one case. So now we're up to at least 10 cases in four different states. So it just really highlights the importance of sessions like these to share and stay up to date on what continues to be an ever-changing, ever-growing field of infectious diseases.

So how this research will affect patient care in the future is really exciting because some of the topics here are things that are out there right now. I mean, RSV vaccines are something that we have people getting in preparation for this upcoming respiratory virus season, and some of these antibiotics are ones that have been in development for a long time. And we're getting close to approval or even approval. So now we have some new options to treat some of the most resistant infections that are out there. We're also excitingly getting more data about how to treat severe community-acquired pneumonia using steroids and other treatments for things like C diff that involve fecal microbiota approaches to treating recurrent C diff. So lots of things that are coming out or that are close to coming out that really can be put into practice right away.

Announcer:
That was Dr. Jeffrey Freiberg giving us an update on what’s happening in clinical science and infectious diseases. To access this and other episodes in our series, visit Clinician’s Roundtable on ReachMD.com, where you can Be Part of the Knowledge. Thanks for listening!