The next chapter for ECIO – Interview with new SPC Chairpersons Jean Palussière and Martijn Meijerink

May 12, 2025

As interventional oncology continues its evolution from promising subspecialty to cornerstone of modern cancer care, the European Conference on Interventional Oncology enters a pivotal phase under the new chairpersons of its Scientific Programme Committee, Profs. Jean Palussière and Martijn Meijerink. Both bring decades of experience, a deep commitment to multidisciplinary collaboration, and a shared vision: to continue strengthening ECIO as the central platform for innovation, evidence-based practice, and patient-centred care in interventional oncology.

CIRSE Insider: What was your motivation behind wishing to lead ECIO as the SPC chairpersons?

Palussière: Interventional oncology is not just a technical discipline; it is part of a patient’s multidisciplinary treatment pathway. In my opinion, the key task of the SPC is therefore to continue to develop the teaching of interventional oncology and the dissemination of its latest developments to a multidisciplinary audience reflective of modern cancer care. We will continue to encourage close collaboration with medical oncologists and other specialists while at the same time pushing for standardization of the techniques we use in our daily practice. This development towards becoming a clinical specialty is not only key for better patient care but is also our responsibility towards the future of our specialty. The next generation of interventional oncologists should already start out as fully fledged caregivers rather than only knowing the technical ins and outs.

Meijerink: My main motivation was the fact that the immense potential of interventional oncology to revolutionize cancer care comes with a responsibility: we must actively work to realize it. While few would dispute that the future of personalized and minimally invasive cancer treatments lies in interventional oncology, this transformation won’t happen on its own. It’s a demanding challenge – one that falls to us, both as a society and as individual interventionalists. We must collaborate closely with, yet independently from, the medical device industry, where many groundbreaking technologies originate. ECIO has made significant strides, but it must continue to evolve into a truly multidisciplinary forum. Physicians, nurses, and technicians should not only learn about innovations and master complex procedures, but also critically assess the evidence supporting their effectiveness. Ultimately, our role extends beyond the procedure itself. We must be present for our patients – before, during, and after treatment – guiding them through these cutting-edge therapies with both scepticism and open-mindedness, always focused on their well-being.

CIRSE Insider: You both have been longtime ECIO attendees – what have been your overarching favourite moments throughout the years? How has the meeting changed since you first started attending?

Palussière: I have attended every instalment of the conference since the first one organized by Prof. Riccardo Lencioni in Florence, except the one which had been moved in July due to the eruption of the Icelandic volcano. From these early days under the leadership of Profs. Lencioni and de Baère, discussions with physicians who are already fully involved in clinical care have shown the way to opening the discipline to clinical practice. These discussions, as we experience them in our daily work, are encouraged by the conference’s tumour board session formats where cases are introduced by oncologists. The session format “Meet the PI” was later introduced by Prof. Alban Denys to highlight the efforts that are being undertaken within the specialty to evaluate techniques and therapeutic combinations, creating the evidence base we need to strengthen our position within the tumour board and open new avenues beyond current frontiers. It is also offers a great opportunity to understand how a trial may be built up, what the key questions are, what methodology to use, and how to involve more IRs in clinical research.

I feel that over the years, IO moving towards clinical involvement has strengthened links with other oncologists, surgeons, and radiotherapists. This has also been supported through the Collaborating Against Cancer Initiative enabling non-radiologists to travel to the conference with their IO colleagues free of charge, a fantastic opportunity for interventionists to disseminate knowledge about IO within their MDT.

During the pandemic, the congress managed to survive thanks to the tenacity of the society and in particular Afshin Gangi, Alban Denys, and Philippe Pereira. A conference held entirely online was organized, and the gamble of holding another ECIO in person in 2022 paid off, despite the fact that we did not know if it would be possible until a few weeks prior to the event.

Meijerink: My first ECIO experience was at the inaugural conference in 2008 and I have never missed an ECIO since. At the time, I was a final-year radiology resident already performing liver and renal tumour ablations. That meeting was truly career-defining for me. There was a strong sense among us – a small group of early adopters – that we were part of something that had the potential to reshape clinical practice and, ultimately, the future of our profession. One of my most vivid memories is an inspirational talk on lung tumour ablations given by our current ECIO chairperson Prof. Jean Palussière. The conference was largely driven by interventional radiologists presenting extraordinary cases, many of which would have been considered highly experimental at the time. Yet, those pioneers demonstrated the immense promise of interventional oncology when practiced with vision and care. Back then, you wouldn’t see survival curves, randomized controlled trial results, or even prospective data in presentations. Instead, the meeting revolved around early clinical experiences, often extrapolated from established techniques like TACE for HCC and radiofrequency ablation for liver tumours – interventions that were just beginning to gain traction as standard care in parts of Europe.

Fast forward to today, and ECIO has matured significantly. Much like established oncology conferences such as ESMO and ASCO, there is now a collective understanding that innovation alone isn’t enough. New treatments must prove their value – not only in terms of safety and efficacy, but eventually also in terms of cost-effectiveness. We’ve learned that clinical adoption must be evidence-driven. What makes ECIO unique is its balance. It remains a place where we first encounter cutting-edge technologies, but now it’s equally a platform for exploring how these innovations can be rigorously validated through well-designed prospective studies and clinical trials. That balance – between inspiration and accountability – is what continues to make ECIO such an essential part of our field.

CIRSE Insider: What is your vision for the future of ECIO?

Palussière: We will keep striving for the highest standards for the conference, both in terms of technical innovation as well as research, and to continue opening up to other specialties to compare treatments. ECIO will remain a platform of multidisciplinary knowledge exchange, so every cancer patient can be offered the right treatment at the right time. We will continue to encourage teamwork that encourages collaboration rather than competition.

As our discipline is constantly evolving technologically, ECIO must also remain a place of technical innovation. One of the challenges ahead is to harmonise the description of techniques and to standardize procedures in order to reduce the risk of complications and failure. New resources such as robotics, radiomics, and AI can help us in this, and we must patiently continue to explore and examine. I can also envision ECIO as a place to promote the creation of multi-institution registries to allow for large data mining. Registries are one of the keys to demonstrate the efficacy of IO, to establish its place, and to enter guidelines. Registries are a strong proposal against “the tyranny of the randomized trial”.

Under the leadership of Prof. Thomas Helmberger, a workshop dedicated to communication was introduced. This theme is essential for us radiologists; as clinicians, we need to follow up on other specialists, communicating with the patient and explaining diagnoses, procedures, and outcomes. For this, we must know how to give news – good or bad.

Meijerink: First and foremost, I hope ECIO will continue to be as career-defining and eye-opening for young colleagues today as it was for me back in 2008. To echo Charles Dotter who said, “When used with imagination, the catheter can become an important therapeutic instrument,” I believe it’s fair to say that – with imagination – our image-guided technologies hold the power to transform clinical oncology. As we’ve heard from this year’s ECIO 2025 keynote lecturer, Prof. Constantinos Sofocleous, for conditions such as hepatocellular carcinoma and colorectal cancer, this transformation is already becoming a reality in many ways. I believe the two key elements for our longer-term success lie in our understanding that we are responsible for our patients before, during, and after the procedure and that we are responsible for the shared mission to ensure that what we’re doing genuinely benefits our patients and is sustainable for healthcare systems. For interventional oncology to truly grow and mature, we need to engage everyone in clinical research. The only way to achieve this is by building a community of professionals who are aligned in vision: one that collaborates rather than competes. A community driven by a collective motivation to transform clinical practice through innovation, evidence, and shared purpose.

CIRSE Insider: What are topics that are specifically close to your heart? Are there any topics from your own practices that you hope you can shine a spotlight on during the next two years?

Palussière: Interventional oncology offers enormous possibilities for the treatment of lung tumours, particularly metastases, which are often underestimated. On CT scans, the natural contrast of lung tumours enables us to treat small lesions very effectively. The field of combination treatment with immunotherapy and local drug delivery is another fascinating topic which I hope to feature strongly at the conference in the coming years. Combining thermal ablation techniques and immunotherapy in cancer management relies on the synergy between the two therapies and therefore requires strong collaboration between practitioners.

The exploration of the immune effects of local and regional interventions will surely be an important research topic in the years to come and I look forward to research on this topic being presented in the upcoming ECIOs. The same goes for the local delivery or direct tumour injection of chemotherapeutic drugs and electrochemotherapy which has shown impressive results on refractory epiduritis. I am also very excited to see the dedicated compounds the industry is working on for local drug delivery.

Meijerink: Interventional oncology already plays a central role in the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma, and in recent months, its growing impact on colorectal and other liver metastases has become increasingly evident, as highlighted in multiple sessions during ECIO 2025. The recently published randomized controlled COLLISION trial – with presentations by the lead authors Drs. Susan van der Lei and Robbert Puijk – demonstrated that ablation is not only significantly safer than surgical resection, but also non-inferior in terms of local control and overall survival. Similarly, registries like CIEMAR – with interim results presented by CIRSE president Prof. Philippe Pereira – highlight the critical importance of confirming ablation margins intra-procedurally, clearly showing better outcomes when this is done. These projects have laid a solid foundation. We’ve proven we can compete with surgery. Now, the next frontier is clear: to eliminate local recurrences altogether, extend our indications to larger and multifocal tumours, and continue pushing the boundaries of image-guided therapies.

But there’s more work to be done. We must raise our game in treating lung, renal, adrenal, soft-tissue, bone, head and neck, and maybe even brain tumours. We have the ability to eradicate disease with submillimetre precision – and that message needs to reach the wider oncology community. Beyond expanding indications and improving visibility, we must also turn the lens inward. Our field still lacks robust, validated systems for quality control. Variability in outcomes – not just between centres, but even between operators within the same department – is too wide. This must change.

CIRSE Insider: Which sessions did you find particularly exciting at ECIO 2025 that you hope to build on for 2026?

Palussière: Coming to ECIO every year, we realize that treatments and therapeutic combinations are evolving rapidly, and the sessions on HCC were very important from this point of view, showing the benefits of combination of TACE with systemic treatments.

The session on colorectal metastases chaired by a radiation oncologist and a surgeon demonstrated how ECIO is open to other specialties. My SPC Co-Chairperson Martjin Meijerink showed us the way forward with the results of the COLLISION trial. This trial has demonstrated the non-inferiority of thermal ablation compared to resection on liver metastases from colorectal cancer. It is the result of a fruitful collaboration and a collective effort  between different groups in the Dutch colorectal cancer group.

I also really enjoyed the various tumour boards at ECIO 2025 which were all lively and reflecting our reality. They clearly demonstrated that there is no competition between, but rather collaboration among specialities for the benefit of the patient.

Another great feature of this year’s congress was the basic course on breast tumours, which was such a lively session with high-level presentations and lots of discussion around a therapeutic proposal – cryotherapy – which we feel is going to play a strong role in the treatment of breast tumours in the coming years.

Meijerink: For me, the mission for ECIO 2026 is clear: to showcase the full potential of interventional oncology – and to look ‘beyond the procedure’, toward becoming a true clinical specialty, with a strong focus on quality control, standardization, and evidence generation and I am honoured and very much look forward to collaborating with the new chairperson Prof. Jean Palussière and the CIRSE team.