Nicolò Battisti, Consultant Medical Oncologist at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, shared on LinkedIn:
“ESMO26 takes place in Madrid next week. No breast cancer trial in the Presidential Symposia at ESMO26, but look past the headline sessions and the programme is one of the strongest we have had in years.
Three themes I am following:
- Survival, finally. NATALEE at six years, postMONARCH and FINER both reporting OS, OptiTROP-Breast01 with final OS. We have spent a decade arguing about PFS surrogates in HR+ disease; this is the week the answers start arriving.
- What comes after CDK4/6. FOURLIGHT-1 (selective CDK4), VIKTORIA-1, evERA biomarkers and KEYNOTE-B49 asking whether immunotherapy has any place in HR+/HER2- disease. Sequencing, not single drugs, is the key question.
- ADC after ADC. TALENT brings T-DXd into neoadjuvant HER2-low disease, two new HER2 ADCs challenge it in the metastatic setting, and SWITCH tests whether changing the target is enough once the payload has failed.
And two I would flag to anyone who treats older patients: TOP-1 on omitting radiotherapy after breast-conserving surgery, and the final analysis of NSABP B-42 on extended letrozole. De-escalation evidence is still the scarcest kind.
Breast cancer at ESMO 2026: where to be and when
Fri 23 Oct · 13:30
Proffered paper 1 – Early and advanced stage
Location: Alicante Auditorium, Hall 6
- NATALEE 6-year OS (Slamon · LBA25)
- TALENT neoadjuvant T-DXd, HER2-low (Hurvitz · LBA23)
- PANKU-Breast01 iza-bren, HR+/HER2- (Lan · LBA50)
- HORIZON-Breast06 SHR-A1811, HER2-low (Fan · LBA13)
- NSABP B-42 extended letrozole (Mamounas · LBA24)
Fri 23 Oct · 16:15
Rapid oral – Early stage
Location: Alicante Auditorium, Hall 6
- lidERA PROs (Werutsky · 538RO)
- DESTINY-Breast05 PROs (Barrios · 539RO)
- DESTINY-Breast11 MRI responses (Boileau · 543RO)
- GIM3 FATA final analysis (De Placido · 544RO)
- TOP-1 RT omission in older patients (Bouwman · 545RO)
Sat 24 Oct · 08:30
Proffered paper 2 – Early and advanced stage
Location: Alicante Auditorium, Hall 6
- KEYNOTE-B49 pembro in HR+/HER2- (Rugo · LBA51)
- FINER / MA.40 ipatasertib OS (Redfern · LBA14)
- FOURLIGHT-1 atirmociclib (Giordano · 1842O)
- TROPION-Breast02 brain mets (Dent · LBA96)
- POP-DURVA stage I TNBC (Ribeiro · LBA26)
Sat 24 Oct · 10:15
Rapid oral 1 – Advanced stage
Location: Almería Auditorium, Hall 9
- postMONARCH OS (Kalinsky · 1RO)
- VIKTORIA-1 update (Pistilli · LBA16)
- evERA biomarkers (Tolaney · 2RO)
- APEX-Breast01 TQB2102, HER2-low (Wang · LBA27)
- HER2CLIMB-05 HRQoL (Dieras · 1766RO)
Mon 26 Oct · 10:15
Rapid oral 2 – Advanced stage
Location: Alicante Auditorium, Hall 6
- DESTINY-Breast09 brain mets (Saura · LBA49)
- OptiTROP-Breast01 final OS (Fan · 4639RO)
- SWITCH ADC after ADC (Liu · 4RO)
- BFv 9MW2821 Nectin-4 ADC, TNBC (Zhang · 4640RO)
- BRIDGET tucatinib after CNS progression (Sammons · 1767RO)
Clocks go back overnight on 24-25 October, so check your Saturday alarm.”
This also can be interesting:
ESMO 2026: 10 Breast Cancer ADCs to Watch in Madrid
Premenopausal HR+/HER2− Early Breast Cancer: Where Evidence Still Falls Short in Adjuvant Care
