Past and Future of J Project Meetings in Turkey: Evaluation of Last 10 Years

Editorial

Authors

1 Necmettin Erbakan University, Meram Medical Faculty, Division of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology, Konya, Turkey

2 Necmettin Erbakan University, Meram Medical Faculty, Division of Allergy and Immunology, Konya, Turkey

10.22034/igj.2020.230675.1039

Abstract

J Project is a physician education and clinical research collaboration program which established in ECE countries in 2004. This project aims to increase awareness of primary PID and improve the diagnosis and treatment of the patients worldwide, especially in countries with limited diagnostic laboratories. Turkey joined with the J Project in 2009 and organized 25 J Project events. The first part of J Project was planned as J Anatolia Meetings in Konya and around. Because the immunology centers were mainly located in West Turkey, we have just started to organize J Project Meetings in East Turkey where the consanguinity ratio is very high (40%). The second part of the J project were called as East Anatolia J Project. Besides these J Project Meetings, three J Project Congresses were organized in Turkey in 2014, 2016, and 2019. Following the J Project meetings in Konya and around, diagnostic delay ratio decreased to 2 months from 10 months in the last 10 years. In the same period, the mean age of diagnosis reduced to 4 months, the ratio of bone marrow transplantion for SCID patients increased from 28 % to 58 % and the survival rate increased from 20 % to 50 %. As a result, ratio of PID especially autosomal recessive ones are higher than literatüre in Turkey. Increased ratio of PIDs shows need to organize more J Project meetings in our country to increase knowledge of physicians on PIDs and increase collaboration between European and non-European countries for early diagnosis of PIDs. We believe that Turkish J Project meetings are valuable and important education program for Turkish physicians with its unique approach.

Keywords


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