Miriam Mutebi, Breast Surgical Oncologist, shared on LinkedIn:
“Day 2 at WCC2026, and I said something that needed to be said. Common-sense oncology is not cheap oncology. It is disciplined oncology.
I was on stage for a session called Common Sense Oncology, a global initiative that is, frankly, slightly alarming in its necessity. That we need an organised movement to reintroduce common sense into our field tells you something about where we’ve arrived.
Here is what I kept coming back to.
We are very good at asking: Can we sequence it? Can we target it? Can we approve it? We are much less disciplined about asking: Will the patient live longer? Live better? And will she actually receive it?
We often say patients present late. Sometimes the patient arrived. The system presented late.
There’s an invisible middle in GlobalOncology: everything between what good Cancer Care looks like and the patient actually receiving it.
The fixes are often gloriously unglamorous: clear referral rules, specimen tracking, navigation, follow-up. No artificial intelligence required. Occasionally, a telephone will do.
A mammogram without a pathway is just a photograph.
A breakthrough is not a breakthrough if the patient never reaches it.
Before we adopt anything new, I think we need five fairly brutal questions:
- Does it meaningfully improve survival or quality of life?
- Can we identify who will benefit?
- Can our system reliably deliver and complete it?
- What is the total burden to the patient: toxicity, money, time, travel?
- What will we stop doing, or not fund, in order to do this?
My take: If we can answer question one but not questions two to five, we may not yet have an intervention. We may have a press release.
We have gotten very comfortable celebrating what exists: The drug was approved. The machine was purchased. The programme was launched.
But ՛started‘ is not the same as ‘received‘. And available is not the same as delivered.
Truth is, the ‘cancer‘ remains unimpressed by our dashboards.”
Other articles about WCC2026 on OncoDaily.
