IARC – International Agency for Research on Cancer/World Health Organization shared on LinkedIn:
“The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) hosted the second meeting of the Opioid Cohort Consortium (OPICO) on 28–30 October 2026. A total of 30 international scientists from 15 institutions worldwide attended the meeting to collaborate on the critical topic of opioid use and its potential link to cancer risk.
The OPICO project, founded in 2021 and led by IARC’s Dr Mahdi Sheikh, harmonizes data from 30 sources, including prospective cohort studies, cancer registries, medication dispensing or prescription records, and electronic health records across the North America, Europe, and Australia. In total, OPICO includes nearly 1.2 million individuals, with detailed data on opioid use at baseline and over time, as well as chronic health conditions and key confounders, followed up for a median of 10 years.
At the second OPICO meeting, the group reviewed the progress of the project, discussed the issues and solutions for implementing the project across various institutes, exchanged on methodological aspects, and set priorities for the next phase of the work.
Through this coordinated international effort, OPICO is enabling rigorous, globally comparable research to strengthen public health evidence and support the development of informed opioid prescribing guidelines and prevention strategies.
The OPICO project is funded by the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the French Institut national du cancer (INCa).
For more information, please visit the project website.”
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