ECTS Clinical action group. By Willem F Lems

For me it is a pleasure and honour to chair the ECTS Clinical action group. I think optimalisation of the communication between ECTS action groups and ECTS members/participants of annual and/or digital meetings is crucial.

I hope that this initiative will be followed by other ECTS action groups. I think it is useful to bring in our current activities and our new plans for the near future.

The Clinical action group of ECTS already exists for many years; the tasks of the Clinical action group are as follows:

1. To initiate and work together as a group on new manuscripts in the bone field, which was very successful in recent years under the leadership of Prof. Carola Zillikens.
2. On request: to comment on fulfilled manuscripts of others, and give advice to the Board whether the manuscript should be approved by the ECTS (e.g. Evaluation and Management of Primary Hyperparathyroidism JBMR 2022).
3. To collaborate with other societies as ECTS representative with other international activities for manuscripts in the bone field.

Very recently, we developed some new initiatives:

1. All the members of the group are the leader of a project for a new manuscript; of course, the activities and responsibilities can be shared with other group members;
2. To bring in two of our best topics in the ECTS annual meeting: we already did that in Liverpool, and this year in Marseille, we will present the proposed new set of recommendations for Glucocorticoid Induced Osteoporosis (Prof. Julien Paccou) and, in the same session, the first paper on a series on optimizing quality of DXA-measurements, a collaboration with EANM, CANM, IOF, ESCEO, ISCD, ASBMR (presented by the PI, Prof. Aliya Khan; John Carey and I (WFL) are representatives of ECTS).
3. To discuss the results of manuscript with others in ECTS webinars, for this year GIOP and chronic nonbacterial osteitis (CNO) in adults (by Dr Liesbeth Winter) are scheduled.
4. Finally, by improving the openness of the procedure for an ECTS position paper: the most important step forward is that approval is not only requested to the Board when the manuscript is finished, but also in the early phase (that gives e.g. the Board the opportunity to invite authors from other countries, other gender balance, more young investigators etc., and other more strategic comments). In the end phase, we strive for open communication with ECTS members by having sessions for discussion at the annual meeting and/or during webinars.

Last but not least, we are working together in a good atmosphere, we have the feeling or being in the winning mood. Our team consists of Athanasios Anastasilakis (co-chair, Greece, multicenter trial), John Carey (Ireland, DXA and Patient Outcomes and Clinical pitfalls), Stella D’Oronzo (Checkpoint inhibitors and Bone), Julien Paccou, Tim Rolvien (treatment of painful acute vertebral fractures).

And we have 2 candidate members Anda Naciu (Italy), and Maria Yavropoulou (|Greece).

For those who want to bring in new ideas for topics and want to join our group in 2025, feel free to contact us, by email (wf.lems@amsterdamumc.nl) or in Marseille.