Pregnancy for Aplastic Anemia and PNH
Pregnancy for Aplastic Anemia and PNH
Speakers: Britta Höchsmann, Alex Naylor
Dr. Höchsmann studied medicine and awarded her medical degree at the University of Ulm, Germany. She spent parts of her medical training at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre, Health Sciences Centre, Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary, Canada.
Her appointment as medical specialist for Internal Medicine was in 2004, as medical specialist for Haematology /Internal Oncology in 2005, as medical specialist for Palliative Care in 2010 and her appointment as medical specialist for Transfusion medicine in 2012.
Since 2004 she is working at the Institute of Clinical Transfusion Medicine and Immunogenetics, Department of Transfusion Medicine of the University UIm & German Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service Baden-Württemberg/Hessen with the focus on rare cytopenias and anaemias as well as clinical haemotherapy.
She is responsible for the specialist outpatient clinic regarding rare cytopenias and anaemias, for flow cytometric GPI-AP diagnostics including the German round robin tests regarding diagnosis of paroxysmal nocturnal haemoglobinuria (PNH) and research projects regarding rare cytopenias, complement and haemotherapy. Since 1998 she is investigator for several randomized and not-randomized multicentre studies regarding these topics. Especially she is the coordinating investigator of the prospective randomized EMAA-trial evaluating efficacy and safety of eltrombopag in combination with ciclosporin in patients with acquired moderate aplastic anaemia.
She is actively involved in the WP-SAA of the society of European bone marrow transplantation (EBMT), the working party "non-malignant haematology" of the German society of haematology and oncology (DGHO) and the Global PNH patient registry. She is a member of the writing comitee of the German guidelines for aplastic anemia of the DGHO (German Society of Haematology and Oncology) as well as for the guidelines for PNH of the DGHO and the German & Austrian consensus recommendations for the diagnosis of PNH.
Alex Naylor is a British PNH patient who was diagnosed in 2017, in her mid-30s. Shortly after beginning treatment on Soliris, she became pregnant and now has a five-year-old son. Since then Alex has been able to adjust to living with PNH and considers that she now lives well with the disease.
As well as being a mother and wife, she works as a personal trainer and is also a board member for PNH Support (PNH patient-led charity in the UK). She spoke at EHA Congress 2022 on the patient experience for those living with PNH and is passionate about helping and educating patients to live well with PNH.