Abstract
IHS in 2021 – Honorary Secretary's report
It is my pleasure to be able to share with you my first annual update of IHS activities as IHS Honorary Secretary.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continued to affect IHS activities in 2021, but the society carried on enhancing the online education platform and, in collaboration with the European Headache Federation (EHF), held a very successful virtual International Headache Congress (IHC). I am also very pleased to announce that by the end of the year the society reached the highest ever number of members. The main society activities are detailed below. Any comments are welcome (see my email address at the end of this report).
20th International Headache Congress
IHC 2021 was held virtually in collaboration with EHF, which facilitated the attendance of almost 2,000 delegates representing over 60 countries.
Delegates enjoyed a varied programme of plenary and scientific sessions, debates, special sessions (Presidential Symposium, IHS Special Lecture, EHF Enrico Greppi Award, Cephalalgia Award Lecture, Headache Science Excellence Tournament), teaching courses, and oral and poster presentations from the 500+ abstracts received.
A special session celebrated the recipients of the 2021 Brain Prize – Professors Michael Moskowitz, Lars Edvinsson, Peter Goadsby and Jes Olesen, awarded for their ground-breaking research that led to the advent of therapies targeting calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) signalling in migraine.
Despite not being able to meet in person, the IHS Juniors Group was active throughout the congress; the highlight of their activities was the Headache Science Excellence Tournament. Six presenters were selected in a blinded fashion based on the content of their submitted abstract and two winners were selected by the audience: one for a clinical research presentation and one for basic research. The presentation award winners were Olivia Grech (basic science) and James Mitchell (clinical science), both from Birmingham, UK. The Juniors also held a virtual Juniors meeting, to which all Junior delegates were invited, to ask questions and provide suggestions for new Junior activities and ways of better promoting IHS to Juniors. Awards were also given for the two best poster presentations, one awarded by the Juniors Group and one people’s choice award.
IHS Special Recognition Awards and Life Memberships
The 2021 Special Recognition Awards were given to Vincenzo Guidetti and Allan Purdy for their outstanding contribution to the formation and advancement of IHS since its foundation. Vincenzo Guidetti has been an active member of IHS for many years, he is one of the originators of the IHS Master Schools and has been working with children and adolescents suffering from headache disorders for years. He continues to serve IHS as Chair of the Italian Linguistic SIG. Allan Purdy has served IHS as IHS Education Chair from 2015–2021 and through his long experience in education and teaching has been an invaluable source of knowledge for the many IHS educational activities.
Two Life Memberships were awarded to Patrick PA Humphrey and Pramod R Saxena, founders of the triptans. Their collaborative work led to the development of small molecule derivatives of serotonin and in 1984 sumatriptan underwent extensive clinical trials which showed its remarkable efficacy; it was subsequently marketed in 1991.
Life Membership was also awarded to Lars Edvinsson, IHS President from 2017–2019, who retired from the IHS Board. He was instrumental in the development of novel CGRP receptor antagonists and was recently one of the recipients of the highly acclaimed Brain Prize. Lars has been a Trustee for the last 6 years and his contribution to the Board has been invaluable.
IHS online education
Within the website is the revitalised Learning Centre continually expanding with more educational videos and podcasts on different aspects of headache and facial pain, all of which have English, Spanish and Chinese subtitles. Webinars included discussions on childhood headache and headache medication during pregnancy and breastfeeding, and the recordings of these are also available. Most of the content is for IHS members only, and if you would like to gain access it is easy to join IHS through the website membership page.
IHS is also grateful to our partner societies who have granted permission to include links to their online meeting presentations.
The IHS Learning Institute was recently launched – this will be a of series comprehensive and up-to-date virtual training programmes on different headache disorders. The first programme on migraine is now available.
IHS thanks the Education Committee and all who have participated and contributed to the learning centre content.
IHS electronic media
Under the guidance of the two Electronic Media Committee Co-Chairs, IHS has continued to enhance its online profile through the social media channels and the society is now more active than ever before, highlighting society’s new and general headache medicine advancements on a daily basis. In collaboration with the Education Committee, two awareness campaigns were held on cluster headache and tension-type headache and these included three videos, each in 14 languages. Thanks are offered to all the Committee members who work daily to ensure the IHS has a strong online presence.
IHS guidelines
The IHS ‘Health technology assessment for the acute and preventive treatment of migraine: A position statement of the International Headache Society’ was published in January 2021 (1) and ’Guidelines of the International Headache Society for clinical trials with neuromodulation devices for the treatment of migraine’ were published in May (2). Work is continuing on guidelines on idiopathic intracranial hypertension, cluster headache, post-traumatic headache and registries on real life data.
All IHS published guidelines including the IHS Classification of Headache Disorders (ICHD-3) (3) and the International Classification of Orofacial Pain (ICOP) (4), are freely available on the IHS and Cephalalgia websites. Translations of ICHD-3 and ICOP can be found on the IHS website.
Cephalalgia and Cephalalgia Reports
IHS was delighted to see the Cephalalgia impact factor for 2020 rise to 6.292 (2019: 4.868). Cephalalgia is now ranked 28 out of 208 in Clinical Neurology and 48 out of 273 in Neuroscience journals.
Cephalalgia Reports, the open-access silhouette title to Cephalalgia providing an international forum for original research papers, review articles, clinical perspectives, case reports, technical reports and short communications, was launched in 2018 and now has published over 100 articles. The publication is now listed in SCOPUS and DOAJ.
IHS is indebted to the Cephalalgia Editor-in-Chief, Arne May, and Editorial Manager, Wendy Krank, who work tirelessly for the journals and have made them the successful publications they are today.
Grants and fellowships
Many of the in-person grant opportunities were suspended in 2021, but IHS was able to award Fellowships to three successful applicants.
IHS Fellowship
Vimala Bharadwaj, India/USA: Research title: Translational studies toward understanding the involvement of hypothalamic kappa opioid receptors (KOR) in stress-induced migraine. Institution: Stanford University – mentor: David Yeomans.
Erika Ivanna Araya, Argentina: Research title: Functional validation of microRNAs in migraine-related behaviour in rodent models of chronic migraine. Institution: Vall d'Hebron Institute of Research, Spain – mentor: Patricia Pozo-Rosich.
Cedric Gollion, France: Research title: Transforming chronic to episodic migraine: an MRI study. Participation in the REFORM study. Institution: Danish Headache Center – mentor: Faisal Amin.
Membership
As previously mentioned, the IHS Board is delighted that in 2021 we have had the largest ever number of members – 1,680 paying members and 1,624 free of charge Associate members, representing 112 countries. We hope that members will keep their membership active – we rely on member support to run the society's activities and programmes.
Governance
In September 2019 a new Board was elected. Cristina Tassorelli succeeded Messoud Ashina as President, Rami Burstein joined as President-elect, and the three elected Trustees, Andrea Carmine Belin, Jan Hoffmann and Aynur Özge, took up office. The Board has also appointed five Co-opted members to ensure global representation: Augustina Charway-Felli (Ghana), Min Kyung Chu (South Korea), Maria Teresa Goicochea (Argentina), Amr Hassan (Egypt) and Teshamae Monteith (USA). Patricia Pozo-Rosich was appointed Honorary Secretary and Fayyaz Ahmed Honorary Treasurer. Grateful thanks are offered to all the retiring members, in particular Stefan Evers and Wendy Thomas who retired as Honorary Secretary and Treasurer, respectively; they have each served IHS for over 10 years and been excellent ambassadors for the society, working tirelessly to secure the future of IHS as an internationally recognised organisation working for headache science, education and management.
There were also new Committee Chair appointments as terms ended. Andrew Hershey was appointed Chair of the Child and Adolescent Committee, succeeding Ishaq Abu-Arafeh. Allan Purdy retired after 6 years as Education Chair; his Co-Chair, Henrik Schytz, continues in the role. Mario Peres was appointed Chair of the Membership Committee, succeeding Anne Ducros, and Francesca Puledda took on the role as Chair of the Juniors Group, succeeding Anders Hougaard. K Ravishankar has succeeded Shuu-Jiun Wang as Chair of the Asian Regional Consortium for Headache, and David García Azorín succeeded Guus Schoonman as Chair of the Secondary Headache Special Interest Group. Many thanks to our retiring Chairs for their commitment and work for IHS over many years.
Thanks
All these activities and achievements would have been impossible without the help of Board members, Committee Chairs, and other IHS members who do a great deal of voluntary work to ensure these activities are professionally executed, and without whom the society could not function. On behalf of the society, I extend my thanks to them, and to the IHS administration and finance teams, and the congress organiser.
More detail on the activities highlighted above can be found in the Newsletters on the IHS website. IHS welcomes comments or proposals for IHS activities – please email me with any suggestions you may have.