Detailed Scientific Programme
The overarching title of the 19th St.Gallen International Breast Cancer Conference is “Individualizing therapy for patients with early-stage breast cancer: tailored local and systemic treatment”.
The conflict of interest information of our faculty can be found here.
Wednesday, 12 March 2025
Thursday, 13 March 2025
Details of the industry sponsored sessions can be found here.
Chairs: David Cameron / Jens Huober / Shigehira Saji
When can we safely withhold radiotherapy and even surgery?
Charlotte Coles (United Kingdom)
Which older patients truly need chemotherapy?
Hans Wildiers (Belgium)
Pyrrhic victory? Are newer approaches causing more harm than good?
Mafalda Oliveira (Spain)
Discussion Moderator: David Cameron
Discussion Participant: Tanja Spanic
Chairs: Walter Weber / Zhiming Shao / Monica Morrow
Why should we prevent mastectomies?
Jana de Boniface (Sweden)
Tailoring radiotherapy: Partial breast and hypofractionation, DCIS and molecular markers
Daniela Kauer-Dorner (Austria)
Breast surgery after neoadjuvant systemic treatment
Viviana Galimberti (Italy)
Breast reconstruction and quality of life
Christine Solbach (Germany)
Discussion Moderator: Jana de Boniface
In collaboration with the Chinese Society of Clinical Oncology (CSCO)
Experts from China will present key trials on breast cancer. The detailed programme can be found here.
Details of the industry sponsored sessions can be found here.
Chairs: Stefan Aebi / Angela De Michele
In this session, the audience has the chance to directly ask their questions and discuss with the following SGBCC Academy lecturers:
- Sung Yong Kim (South Korea): How to manage early triple-negative breast cancer
- Catherine M. Kelly (Ireland): Managing side effects of chemotherapy
- Shaheena Dawood (United Arab Emirates): Neoadjuvant and adjuvant therapy of HER2 positive EBC
- Stefan Aebi (Switzerland): Prevention of Bone disease in Early Breast Cancer
The respective lectures will be available as video on demand to all registered delegates from February 2025 onwards. You can find more details on the SGBCC Academy here.
Chair: Walter Weber
For: Shelley Potter, Orit Kaidar-Person
Against: Monica Morrow, Philip Poortmans
Chairs: Harold Burstein / Michael Gnant / Meteb Al-Foheidi
Crawling towards cure – small steps of clinical benefit in HR+ (De-escalation, combination, new drugs? SERDs?)
David Cameron (United Kingdom)
Which ER+ tumors still require chemotherapy?
Kevin Kalinsky (United States of America)
The long and winding road of individualized endocrine therapy in premenopausal women
Prudence Francis (Australia)
How long is long enough? Duration of endocrine therapy in view of locoregional treatment de-escalation
Terry Mamounas (United States of America)
Lobular breast cancer: unique approaches?
Marie-Jeanne Vrancken-Peeters (Netherlands)
Multi-omic subtyping and precision-guided therapy of luminal breast cancer
Zhiming Shao (China)
Which tumors warrant adjuvant CDK4/6 inhibitor therapy?
Angela De Michele (United States of America)
Which ER+ cancers will warrant immunotherapy approaches?
Marleen Kok (Netherlands)
Discussion Moderator: Harold Burstein
Chairs: Fabrice Andre / Nadia Harbeck / Jacob Kather
What is the role of AI in breast pathology?
Jakob Kather (Germany)
What is the role of AI in planning radiation therapy?
Gerd Fastner (Austria)
Discussion Moderator: Jacob Kather
Chair: Beat Thürlimann
Announcement of the SGBCC 2025 Poster Awards for the 7 best abstract submissions to the conference.
The awardees will also present their works in a dedicated e-poster session on Friday, 14 March, from 11:00 – 11:30.
Chairs: Isabel Rubio / Bahadir Gulluoglu / Eriko Tokunaga
Where does PET imaging belong in initial staging?
Isabel Rubio (Spain)
What is the role of MRI in the initial presurgical work up?
Bahadir Gulluoglu (Turkey)
Most cancers (lung, colorectal, ovarian, prostate, leukemia, lymphoma) have surveillance studies: is it time to re-think our approach in breast cancer?
Jens Huober (Switzerland)
Discussion Moderator: Bahadir Gulluoglu
Details of the industry sponsored sessions can be found here.
Friday, 14 March 2025
Details of the industry sponsored sessions can be found here.
Chairs: Christian Singer / Andrew Tutt / Sara Brucker
Genetic testing: risk-adapted approaches, or make it universal?
Shani Paluch-Shimon (ISR)
What do we actually achieve with mastectomy in terms of outcome?
Kelly Metcalfe (Canada)
Risk reducing surgery: are nerve- or nipple-sparing techniques appropriate in mutation carriers?
Judy Boughey (United States of America)
Alternatives to risk reducing surgery – Intense surveillance or preventive therapies
Christian Singer (Austria)
Discussion Moderator: Andrew Tutt
Chairs: Judy Boughey / Philip Poortmans / Chiun-Sheng Huang
Who can avoid upfront sentinel node and axillary surgery in node-negative and node-positive presentations
Cicero Urban (Brazil)
Axillary surgery in inflammatory breast cancer, local recurrence, or stage IV cancer
Maria Joao Cardoso (Portugal)
Axillary surgery after neoadjuvant chemotherapy
Walter Weber (Switzerland)
Nodal irradiation after neoadjuvant chemotherapy
Anusheel Munshi (India)
Discussion Moderator: Maria Joao Cardoso
Experts from India will present key trials on breast cancer. The detailed programme can be found here.
Group 1 “Biology”: 4 e-poster presentations
Chair: Sibylle Loibl
Group 2 “Surgery”: 3 e-poster presentations
Chair: Sherene Loi
The SGBCC poster award winners 2025 will present their work in short oral presentations at the e-poster terminals on level 1.
Speakers: Robert Hills / Jeremy Braybrooke / David Dodwell
- Introduction and background
- Updates on recent EBCTCG findings: duration of endocrine therapy, ovarian function suppression, treatment of the axilla, surgery, regional node radiotherapy, taxane/anthracycline
- Discussion of possible future meta-analyses
Details of the industry sponsored sessions can be found here.
Chairs: Michael Gnant / Meteb Al-Foheidi
In this session, the audience has the chance to directly ask their questions and discuss with the following SGBCC Academy lecturers:
- Sara Brucker (Germany): How to treat side effects of endocrine therapy
- Elżbieta Senkus-Koniefka (Poland): Multidisciplinary setup of breast centers
- Tanja Spanic (Slovenia) – invited: Importance of survivorship and patient advocay
- Shelley Potter (United Kingdom): Benefits and risks of prophylactic surgery
The respective lectures will be available as video on demand to all registered delegates from February 2025 onwards. You can find more details on the SGBCC Academy here.
Chairs: Meredith Regan / Mafalda Oliveira / Sung Yong Kim
Strenghts and limitations of clinical trial design
Meredith Regan (United States of America)
Meaningful Measures – the clinicians perspective [who chooses clinical trial populations – only industry?]
David Cameron (United Kingdom)
Regulatory perspective – overextrapolating high risk derived data to average risk populations
Francesco Pignatti (European Medicines Agency)
Patient perspective – what do WE really need?
Tanja Spanic (Slovenia)
Discussion Moderator: Meredith Regan
Chairs: Giuseppe Curigliano / Michael Gnant
2024 Clinical research highlights for early and late breast cancer
Virginia Kaklamani (United States of America)
Chair: Beat Thürlimann
For: Catherine M. Kelly, Virginia Kaklamani
Against: Stephen Chia, Barbara Pistilli
Chairs: Prudence Francis / Zefei Jiang / Heba Gamal
Breast Cancer during pregnancy
Cristina Saura (Spain)
Fertility preservation and pregnancy after breast cancer
Matteo Lambertini (Italy)
Sexual health in breast cancer survivors
Laura Michel (Germany)
Addressing long-term toxicities from breast cancer treatments and evidence based approaches for healthy living in Breast Cancer
Cynthia Villarreal-Garza (Mexico)
Discussion Moderator: Prudence Francis
Chairs: Sibylle Loibl / Lisa Carey / Virginia Kaklamani
How much immunotherapy is enough?
Sherene Loi (Australia)
Quantifying residual disease, and understanding its biology and clinical implications
William Fraser Symmans (United States of America)
Adjuvant therapy after pCR; adjuvant therapy with residual cancer
Lisa Carey (United States of America)
Does everyone with TNBC need chemotherapy? Which cancers – by stage or biology – do not?
Hope Rugo (United States of America)
Beyond PARP & BRCA: Next generation approaches to HRD
Andrew Tutt (United Kingdom)
Have we all become immunooncologists – long term side effects and how to handle them
Shaheena Dawood (United Arab Emirates)
Discussion Moderator: Hope Rugo
Details of the industry sponsored sessions can be found here.
Saturday, 15 March 2025
Kindly note that the SGBCC Academy “Meet the Expert” Sessions as well as the Voice of China Session will take place in break out rooms. All other sessions will take place in the plenary hall A.
Important Dates
Mark your calender to not miss any of our key dates and deadlines for your attendance and abstract submission to SGBCC 2025!
