Innovation, inequalities and interdisciplinary care: The Cancer and Primary Care Research International Network (Ca-PRI) Conference 2025
Members of our Cancer Theme recently attended the Cancer and Primary Care Research International Network (Ca-PRI) Conference, where several team members were recognised and celebrated for their work.
The annual Cancer and Primary Care Research International Network (Ca-PRI) Conference was held recently and this year over 250 attendees gathered in Manchester’s Media City. The Ca-PRI conference provides an invaluable opportunity to hear the latest Cancer primary care research, both nationally and internationally, meet with collaborators in person and to forge new collaborations via the conference’s networking opportunities. Fourteen members of the Cancer Theme headed North to Manchester, ranging from our Theme Leads to our DPhil students.
There were many highlights of the conference. Including keynotes centring on the “Future of Global Cancer: Primary Care and Beyond” (Prof. Richard Sullivan, Kings College London), “Revisiting the Aarhus Statement” (Prof. Jon Emery, University of Melbourne), “Achieving Equity in Lung Cancer Screening” (Prof. Mike Pignone, Duke University) and “Opportunities and challenges for primary care and cancer in the UK” (Naser Turabi, Cancer Research UK). It was especially encouraging to see so many abstracts and dedicated sessions on the topic of addressing Health Inequity.
There were also several personal highlights for the team. Pradeep Virdee won not one, but two, prizes for his abstract “External validation of the Full BLOOD count TRends for colorectal cAnCer deteCtion (BLOODTRACC) risk prediction models in English primary care”. Both Sheba Ziyenge and Tara Seehder made their conference presentation debuts with “Trends and sociodemographic variation in primary care consultations and urgent referrals for potential cancer symptoms: 2019 to 2023” and “The presenting signs, symptoms and tests associated with a lymphoma diagnosis within primary care settings: a systematic review” respectively. Our second year DPhil student, Sufen Zhu, successfully submitted three abstracts, including the oral presentation “Predictive value of anaemia for cancer diagnosis in primary care: a population-based cohort study using electronic health records data in England”. Kiana Collins hard work to develop interactive dashboards to show primary care presentation activity related to cancer was rewarded in her work being included in CRUK’s plenary session.
Theme leads Assocaite Professor Brian Nicholson and Professor Clare Bankhead reflected “We are very pleased that so many of the team are being recognised for their excellent work by the wider cancer community. The connections made between our team and international stakeholders, colleagues, and friends will enrich our work and keep us focussed on the important current and future issues for cancer control. We congratulate Sam Merriel and his team for hosting such a wonderful meeting.”
We are very much looking forward to Ca-PRI 2026 which will be hosted by our colleagues in Utrecht, Netherlands! You can read more about Ca-PRI 2025 here and learn more about the work of the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Cancer Theme, including links to recent publications, here.