An ESMO roadmap addresses how the new challenges in oncology can be transformed into opportunities for the benefits of oncology professionals and patients with cancer
This year, ESMO turns 50. Fifty years of education, science dissemination and collaboration; of relentless commitment to improving cancer care; of evolving alongside a field that has transformed beyond recognition in the past decade alone.
The pace of change in oncology demands more than reflection: it calls for renewal. That is why, over the past months, we have embarked on a process to rethink ESMO’s role within the oncology ecosystem.
The result is a roadmap to help us navigate the future with purpose, agility, and united. At its heart is a simple but powerful vision: ESMO working to foster a re-engineering of care across the entire patient journey. But at the level of each individual patient. Optimising care for individual patients is the key to improving outcomes for all. This means delivering care that is not only effective, but also sustainable structurally, equitable, and humane.
To achieve this, we must embrace a practice of oncology that is tailored to the individual patient – not as a tech luxury for the few, but as a new way of thinking medicine for all, globally.
Modern oncology is now a complex specialty, not simply the administration of drugs when approved by regulatory agencies. It is founded on five pillars - new drugs; treatment and care strategies; delivery of care; toxicity management; prevention – through which an optimisation, or even a re-engineering of care can be achieved across the entire patient journey.
Optimising can have a number of meanings such as delivering the right treatment, dose and duration sufficient to cure a patient, referring patients to complex infrastructures in some specific situations, creating very effective infrastructures, thinking of care at the individual level. Optimising care at each step of the patient journey will dramatically improve access to care on a global scale, making structures sustainable and reducing the burden of work that each oncology professional is facing.
At ESMO, we see a growing responsibility to define and shape the future of oncology, both at the scientific and practice level, together with delivering on our mission to educate, disseminate scientific advances and supporting members.
We will train oncologists worldwide on the evolving standards of care, while also preparing them for the adoption of new treatment modalities, ranging from radioligand therapies through cell-based treatments. We will prioritise the development of new definitions and classifications as well as frameworks so that research and access to innovation can be accelerated. We will promote treatment optimisation, including evidence-based de-escalation strategies, as a way to make care more sustainable, both economically and environmentally. We will invest in personalised prevention and post-cancer care, recognising that cancer care does not begin at diagnosis nor end with remission. We will foster the responsible integration of artificial intelligence and digital tools into clinical decision-making, with the goal of making precision oncology accessible everywhere, and not just in high-resource settings. We will support with developing capacity to establish and build clinical infrastructures, and we will work with experts in health economics to develop new models of reimbursement and value frameworks, so that innovation does not come at the cost of equity. In addition to proposing space for discussion and education, we will also develop concrete projects with patients, mainly with the objective to humanise scientific reports. Also, we must recognise that the future of oncology will be shaped not only by oncologists, but by a broader constellation of contributors such as bioengineers, data scientists, AI developers, economists, patient advocates, hospital administrators. ESMO can, must, and will serve as a catalyst for collaboration across disciplines, sectors, and geographies.
This is a story about expanding what we are and become what we need to be. It will require listening to our members, working with our partners, adapting to local realities, and moving cautiously – but still firmly – to ensure that every step we take is feasible, inclusive, and aligned with the values ESMO is founded on. And above all, it will require us to believe in the power of community. Because no vision can succeed without people.
The future of oncology will be enhanced through AI and new technologies, but it will not be built by algorithms: it will be built by individuals. By all of us.
[Extract from the ESMO President’s speech at the ESMO Congress 2025 Opening session]
