The event "Together for the Treatment of Children with Primary Immunodeficiencies (PI)", organized by the Meyer Pediatric Hospital with Kedrion’s full support, took place on June 6 at the Anna Meyer Pediatric Hospital in Florence, Italy. Experts from the Meyer Hospital, representatives of various institutions, associations and federations of Italian donors and the parents of children with immunodeficiencies attended the event.
The principal aim was to promote newborn screening for primary immunodeficiency disorders. This testing was pioneered in Tuscany at the Jeffrey Modell Center, the only JM pediatric center in Italy, located inside Meyer Hospital.
“Early testing is key because it allows one to make a diagnosis before the primary immunodeficiency creates damage, that is to say, before it manifests itself with correlated diseases that become particularly serious given the immune deficiency the child is suffering from” stated Chiara Azzari, Director of Pediatric Immunology at the Florence Hospital. “Thanks to the collaboration between multidisciplinary teams of researchers, Meyer Pediatric Hospital has developed and uses testing that is one of a kind in the world for the early diagnosis of primary immunodeficiencies (IDP). Furthermore, all children born in Tuscany over the past three years have undergone such testing (30,000 children per year). Early detection enables us immediately to administer therapies that provide a good quality of life”.
“In addition to antibiotic therapy, children with immunological defects are treated with immunoglobulin, a life-saving therapy derived from human plasma,” explained Massimo Resti, Director of the UOC of Meyer’s Pediatrics. "Without the immeasurable gift of those who donate their blood {plasma} on a voluntary basis, there would be no possibility of life for these children.”
"We believe that together with the therapeutic benefits of immunoglobulins, whether administered intravenously or subcutaneously, the tremendous social value offered to patients with immunodeficiencies and to their families should also be taken into account," concluded Kedrion Global Marketing Director, Ferdinando Borgese. “Today the healthcare system should, indeed must, be relied on to provide increasingly early diagnosis and full access to care."
