June 28, 2021

European policy on cancer from a PID perspective 17th PID Forum


IPOPI organised its 17th PID Forum on the topic of PIDs and Cancers on April 22, 2021. The event was co-chaired by 2 Members of the European Parliament, Ms Irena Joveva (Renew Europe, Slovenia) and Ms Deirdre Clune (EPP, Ireland).

The event was moderated by Mr Johan Prevot, Executive Director of IPOPI and had the participation of Ms Martine Pergent, IPOPI President, Prof Isabelle Meyts, ESID President, Dr Fabian Hauck, from the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich (Germany), Ms Adriana Radovan, nurse at the Children hospital “Louis Turcanu” (Romania), Mr Raf Leijskens, parent of a patient with a PID (Belgium) and Ms Antonella Cardone, Director of the European Cancer Patient Coalition (ECPC). Participants highlighted the complex relation between primary immunodeficiencies (PIDs) and cancer. IPOPI made key recommendations for addressing the needs of cancer high-risk patient populations such as PIDs.
These recommendations include:

  1. Cancer screening and diagnosis guidelines to pay attention to high-risk patient populations
  2. Specific policy during the formation of multidisciplinary teams to ensure continuity of care for patients with multiple conditions
  3. Future cancer research programmes goals to consider the relationship between conditions such as PIDs and cancers.

To know more about the discussions held during the meeting, please check the report here!

As a result from the Forum, IPOPI issued a Call to Action on Tackling Primary Immunodeficiencies and Cancer that will be used in our engagement with European policymakers to ensure that rare disease patients, such as patients with PIDs, are duly taken into account in legislative initiatives on cancer.

IPOPI’s 18th PID Forum will be dedicated to EU patients’ access to curative therapies for their PIDs in another EU country and will take place online on July 13, 2021, (14h – 15h30 CEST). MEP Mr Tomislav Sokol (EPP, Croatia) will be the host of the event and if you would like to join the discussions please reach out to Leire Solís (leire@ipopi.org).