Past Symposia

The 2016 SMA Symposium was held on September 30 & October 1 at the Sheraton Philadelphia University City Hotel. The meeting was directed by Dr. Oscar Henry Mayer, the Medical Director of the Pulmonary Function Testing Laboratory at CHOP and Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. John Brandsema, the Director of the Neuromuscular Program at CHOP, and Dr. Patrick Cahill, the Associate Director of the Center for Thoracic Insufficiency Syndrome at CHOP.  The meeting covered a wide range of topics including: SMA diagnosis and pathology, novel disease modifying therapeutics, SMA functional assessment, person-reported outcome measures, airway clearance, chronic respiratory failure, acute management (home and inpatient), the role of exercise in SMA, calorie supplementation, and more.