Koen Zwart winner of the Palga Prize 2024

On Friday, April 12, during the Week of Pathology in Amersfoort, Palga Director Jan-Willem Gefken presented the Palga Prize 2024.

Since 2012, the Palga Foundation has annually awarded this prize. The award was created to encourage the use of the Palga database for scientific research.

The Palga Prize is awarded to the researcher with the best abstract of research that utilizes data from the Palga database.

From all the entries, the Palga Science Committee has declared Koen Zwart as the winner. Koen is doing his PhD at the Department of Medical Oncology at the University Medical Center Utrecht. The winning abstract is titled:

Increased risk of deficient mismatch repair colorectal cancer and its immediate precursor lesions after kidney transplantation

This unique study by UMC Utrecht, in collaboration with Radboud University in Nijmegen, linked four national registries together. In a group of 20,000 transplant patients, it appears that one subtype of colorectal cancer (dMMR/MSI) occurs more frequently. This result may have implications for colorectal cancer screening in this group of patients.

Palga Prize Procedure

Researchers were invited to submit an abstract. The abstract could concern either current, unpublished research or research published in 2022 or 2023. The abstract had to meet the following criteria:

  • Research source(s) used: data from the national Palga database, PA material requested via Palga, and/or clinical data from the treating physician obtained via Palga.
  • The researcher is willing to give a presentation during the Week of Pathology.
  • The abstract must be in English, contain a maximum of 300 words, and have the following structure: title, authors, background, research question, method, results, conclusion.
  • For the Palga Prize 2024, 26 abstracts were submitted.

The Palga Science Committee (CW), consisting of three pathologists, two epidemiologists, and one KMBP member, awarded points to each abstract for the following aspects:

  • Originality of the research question
  • Writing style
  • Quality of the methodology
  • Clinical relevance
  • Good use of the Palga database as a research source

In the first round, each abstract was evaluated by one pathologist and one epidemiologist/KMBP member. This resulted in nine top-rated abstracts. These were then re-evaluated by every member of the CW in the second round.

The winner gave a presentation on the winning research on Friday, April 12, during the Week of Pathology.

The winning abstract can be found here. The other 2024 entries can be read here.

We thank everyone who participated in the Palga Prize 2024 for submitting their abstract. The submission for the Palga Prize 2025 will open in October. We look forward to receiving many abstracts then as well.

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