Eduardo Acevedo-Vásquez

EDUARDO M. ACEVEDO-VASQUEZ, M.D., DOCTOR EN MEDICINA, PAMR*, MACR** Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos ’73 I am a member of the School of Medicine San Fernando, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos Class of 1973 (UNMSM). I completed my training in Internal Medicine at Hospital Guillermo Almenara and in Rheumatology at the Instituto Mexicano de Seguridad Social. My mentors were the late Dr. Gregorio Mintz (Mexico) and Enrique Robles (Peru). The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico granted me the title of specialist in Rheumatology, revalidated by the School of Medicine of San Fernando, UNMSM. Upon return to Peru in 1982, I went back to the Almenara Hospital where I performed different functions and responsibilities, as Head of the Education and Research Unit, Head of the Department of Medicine III, Medical Director and finally Head of the Rheumatology Department until my retirement in 2010. Years before (1978) I began teaching in San Marcos and was promoted years later as Associated Professor (Profesor Principal). During this time I cooperated in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching as well as in the training of resident physicians of the specialty until my retirement. Since 1984 until 2010, our department formed 26 new peruvian rheumatologists within the medical residency program in rheumatology, G. Almenara Hospital, ESSALUD. Lima Peru. During mine academic and service professional career, I have been honored with several distinctions, particularly for research work in the field of Clinical Rheumatology and by my care work at the Almenara Hospital, a hospital that is part of the Social Security system of Peru - ESSALUD. Interested in the research, we made contact with researchers from other countries, so with our group we participate in multinational collaborative studies, such as GLADEL (Latin American Group for the Study of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus) and GLADAR (Latin American Group for the Study of Rheumatoid Arthritis), of which I am one of the members of the Executive Committee. We have also contributed with immunogenetic studies in Peruvian populations with Rheumatoid Arthritis and Systemic Lupus Erythematosus with the vital support of Drs Frank Wollheim (University of Lund, Sweden) Bernardo Pons-Estel (Regional Center for Autoimmune and Rheumatic Diseases and the Cardiovascular Institute of Rosario, Argentina) and Marta Alarcon (Center for Genomics and Oncology Research (Genyo) of the Andalusian Public Progress and Health Foundation (FPS) and Visiting Professor Karolinska Intitutet from Stockholm (Sweden). Our group has also been among the first to demonstrate that the intradermal tuberculin test is not the best for the screening of latent tuberculosis infection in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, and the measurement of interferon-γ released by sensitized lymphocytes (Interferon-Gamma release assay IGRA) that are exposed to tubercle bacillus antigens is the best way. Within these tests, QuantiFERON-TB Gold Plus (QTF) was the one we use for our studies. The safety of this result is of great importance prior to the initiation of biological therapy in these patients. Most of our works such as those discussed above and others such as those on ANCA vasculitis in peruvian population have been presented at different congresses of the specialty, having been published around ninety of them in indexed medical journals of national and international circulation and in specialty textbooks. On our way to seek the development of Rheumatology in Peru, we had the honor of founding and being the first editor of the Peruvian Journal of Rheumatology. Since my return I have been an active member of the Peruvian Society of Rheumatology and I was President in the period 1990-1992. In 1982 I was accepted as a member of the then Mexican Society of Rheumatology (today the Mexican College of Rheumatology) and from that same time to the present day a member of the American College of Rheumatology, having been recognized as a Master** since 2017. The Peruvian Society of Internal Medicine has me as one of its members. Since 2002 the National Academy of Medicine of Peru initially recognizes me as an Associate Member and since 2011 a Full Member (Académico de Número), currently being the Biennial Secretary of the Board of Directors of the Academy, for the period 2019-2021. As an active member of PANLAR I have participated in the Congresses held in the American continent. I chaired the Organizing Committee of the PANLAR Congress held in Lima and Cusco in August 2006, managing to attract a vast number of attendees from our and other continents through the design of the program. In 2014 I was recognized as a Master* by the Pan American League of Associations of Rheumatology (PANLAR), receiving in 2018 the ¨Pan-American League Against Rheumatism award a deserved recognition and grants the distinction to the “Pan-American Spirit”.