[20th June 2025]
A simple campaign to make a big impact
We are launching the The Pelvic Radiation Disease (PRD) Pledge campaign on 23rd June 2025. This coincides with the start of BSG Live, where we will be attending and hosting a PRDA stand throughout the week. The PRD Pledge campaign will continue online and at future events, as we invite professionals to take the pledge and help raise awareness of PRD.
What is the PRD Pledge?
It is part of PRDA’s top priorities to see that Pelvic Radiation Disease (PRD) is widely accepted and recognised as a serious consequence of cancer treatment. We’re asking healthcare professionals to pledge to use the term Pelvic Radiation Disease with people in their care, in clinical practice, correspondence and research.
What we hope this will do:
- Raise awareness of Pelvic Radiation Disease amongst healthcare professionals.
- Help people feel validated – Many people with PRD struggle with symptoms or experiences that others can’t see or don’t understand. A name gives shape to those feelings—it tells people, “This is real”.
- Connect people living with PRD to a community – having a name for your condition makes it easier to find others going through the same thing. That sense of shared experience can reduce isolation
- Empower people to seek support from organisations like us. We know that when you don’t know the term it’s hard to get help – many people go years without having the answer to what’s causing their symptoms.
- Open the door to support and care – using the term PRD will allow access to treatments, medication, or services that can improve quality of life. By making Healthcare professionals aware it can guide how best to help.
Living with PRD? Add your voice to the PRD Pledge Campaign
Have you ever seen the term ‘Pelvic Radiation Disease’ in a letter from your healthcare team or have they discussed it at appointments? We know that for many, the answer is no—and we want to change that. We’d love to include your voice to the campaign.
What would it mean to you to see ‘Pelvic Radiation Disease’ in a letter from your healthcare team?
- Would it help you feel recognised?
- Would it help you to explore conversations with your GP for instance?
- If you were seeing it for the first time, do you think it would help you find support?
or
- If you have been told you have PRD during an appointment or seen it in a clinic letter, what did it mean to you?
Have your say We’re looking for a sentence or two about your experience or reflections on this issue that we could use (anonymously, if you prefer) to help health professionals understand why naming PRD matters.
Let’s help the healthcare professionals who treat people living with PRD understand the power of recognition—and the power of your voice. Complete this short form to have your say.
“If I were to see the term Pelvic Radiation Disease written in a medical letter, it would mean the world to me. It would mean that what I live with would finally be recognised. To call it by what it truly is – Pelvic Radiation Disease – would mean that there is finally a recognition of the life changes that it brings.”
A lady who has been living with PRD for over 5 years
“Though I’ve been living with Pelvic Radiation Disease for 16 years, I was only told in 2019 what it was. I really believed that, before I was told, I was going mad and very close to taking my life. Not now — there is a great deal of medical service that’s beginning to recognise PRD.
There is still much more that needs to be done.”
Wendy – Living with PRD
“This disease affects all basic functions. This disease has changed my life. I can’t work and I am no longer the mum I wanted to be. For someone like me, mentally, this was devastating. Pelvic Radiation Disease is a very real thing and needs to be recognised and treated as such, so people like me can get the help they need and deserve.”
Becky – living with PRD and member of our Patient Advisory Group.
Modified: 18th June 2025