SGBCC 2025 Highlights by Paolo Tarantino

The 19th St. Gallen International Breast Cancer Conference (SGBCC) took place from March 12–15, 2025, at the Austria Center Vienna, gathering 5,000 experts from over 100 countries.

The program covered advances in early breast cancer (EBC) care, including precision medicine, targeted therapies, and surgical innovations, alongside debates on chemotherapy and treatment de-escalation.

The event concluded with the St. Gallen Consensus Session, where 80 specialists formulated global EBC treatment guidelines, published in a peer-reviewed oncology journal. Organized by the Foundation SONK, the conference moved from St. Gallen to Vienna in 2015 to accommodate its growing impact.

Paolo Tarantino, Clinical Research Fellow at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, shared some insights from SGBCC 2025:

SGBCC2025 Opening Session

“SGBCC2025 Opening Session

The key consensus conference on early breast cancer for nearly 50 years

Started as a joint conference to discuss the contradictory results of CMF and LMF

Grew to become a reference meeting with huge impact on the treatment of breast cancer worldwide.”

Balancing efficacy and tox of therapies by Mafalda Oliveira

“Wonderful talk on balancing efficacy and tox of therapies by Mafalda Oliveira. Important to weigh the benefit of each new drug with its side effects and costs. Biomarkers can truly improve the value of new treatments: key to develop effective strategies to validate and implement them.”

Fabrice Andre on novel endocrine treatments

“Risk-adapted framework for the development and implementation of novel endocrine treatments (eg. Novel SERDs) in early breast cancer – by Fabrice Andre.”

Nadia Harbeck reviews opportunities for de-escalation in HER2+ eBC

“Nadia Harbeck reviews opportunities for de-escalation in HER2+ eBC, highlighting promising role for several biomarkers (HER2DX, PET, MRI, among others).”

Carsten Denkert’s Pathology lessons

“Pathology lessons learned over 20 years of HER2 research – by Carsten Denkert

Much unveiled on HER2+ BC

Many challenges ahead for HER2-low and ultralow.”

Giuseppe Curigliano on surrogate endpoints for early breast cancer trials

“Masterful presentation on surrogate endpoints for early breast cancer trials by Giuseppe Curigliano. Critical to consider the association between trial endpoints and OS to understand and predict the impact of drugs in the curative setting.”

What DRFS benefit justifies the use of chemo for ER+/HER2- BC?

“What DRFS benefit justifies the use of chemo for ER+/HER2- BC?

5%

Though Kevin Kalinsky specifies: it remains a shared decision making, where the preference of the patient is always critical.”

Recent data from the POLAR randomized trial

“Over half of the panel votes in favor of the routine use of cooling gloves to reduce taxane neuropathy!

Recent data from the POLAR randomized trial published on JAMA Oncology.”

How to treat TNBC after pCR or RD with the KEYNOTE-522 regimen

“How to treat TNBC after pCR or RD with the KEYNOTE-522 regimen? Terrific presentation by Lisa Carey, highlighting the need to put the available data in the context of pragmatical considerations related to risk of recurrence. ”

Sherene Loi on the duration of immunotherapy for treating TNBC

“What duration of immunotherapy is enough for treating TNBC?

Sherene Loi reviews the data and provides her opinions.

Important to remember that IO duration matters for irAEs rate (sometimes permanent), whereas its impact on therapy efficacy is not always clear.”

Stephen Chia highlights the negative data from the randomized NRG-BR002 trial

“Is oligometastatic breast cancer curable?

Stephen Chia supports the point for NO, highlighting the negative data from the randomized NRG-BR002 trial

‘As oncologists, by nature we are forever optimists – but we cannot treat patients by anecdotes.’ ”

10 key results from the Consensus

“The 19th St. Gallen Consensus Conference took place this week in Vienna. Nearly 80 expert panelists voted on key debated topics in breast oncology.

Here’s 10 key results from the Consensus voting, divided by topic/breast cancer subtype.”

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