Dr. Thomas presented in the Antibody Testing and Treatment Recommendations webinar hosted by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. The webinar took place on April 30th, 2020 as part of the COVID-19 and the Liver series by the AASLD COVID-19 Working Group. The COVID-19 and the Liver series is dedicated to presenting discoveries and discussions about COVID-19 and how it impacts the care of liver patients.
The Antibody Testing and Treatment Recommendations webinar is the fourth in the series. This session was designed to:
- Describe updates to the COVID-19 pandemic’s effect on the liver and its impact on hepatology and liver transplant providers.
- Help attendees to understand and review management strategies in patients with COVID-19 and chronic liver disease.
- Provide information regarding diagnostic antibody tests for SARS-CoV-2 exposure and review data on the possibility of subsequent immune protection from COVID-19.
Dr. Thomas’s presentation emphasized the current state of serological testing for SARS-CoV-2 and ongoing developments in this area. Antibody response in infected patients remains largely unknown and clinical values of antibody testing have not been fully demonstrated. Seroprevalence data will be important in understanding the scale of the pandemic & future vaccine immunity. False positive and false negative serology testing results are driving the development of optimized neutralization assays from established companies.
Additional presenters for the Antibody Testing and Treatment Recommendations webinar included Dr. Kimberley A. Brown, Chief of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, MI as well as Dr. Laura M. Kulik, Professor of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology of the Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, IL. The webinar was moderated by Dr. Brendan M. McGuire, Professor of Medicine and Medical Director of the Liver Transplant Program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and the Children’s of Alabama.