(UroToday.com) The 2026 Advanced Prostate Cancer Consensus Conference (APCCC) meeting featured a session discussing how we ensure everyone gets the best possible care in different contexts and a presentation by Dr. Eric Small discussing the role of societies in defining optimal care. Dr. Small emphasized that ASCO has a broad footprint in defining optimal care, which is supported by guidelines, educational sessions, educational books, position papers, quality programs, patient advocate programs, and political advocacy. For the purposes of this presentation, Dr. Small focused on defining optimal care in different contexts, including resource-constrained environments.
The ASCO strategic plan has a mission of conquering cancer through research, education, and promotion of the highest quality patient care, and a vision of a world where cancer is prevented or cured, and every survivor is healthy. One of the five-year goals of ASCO is focused on access, specifically removing barriers and promoting access to high-quality care and patient-centered research:
ASCO regional councils and advisory groups have a goal of increasing ASCO’s global engagement through a regional approach, increasing international member involvement in ASCO, increasing an understanding of the priority needs of the region, and tailoring ASCO programs to address those needs. These regional councils include Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia Pacific, India Advisory Group, and Sub-Saharan Africa:
Examples of ASCO’s Global Scope include:
- A Global Policy Framework
- A roadmap for clinical research skills for healthcare professionals in low/middle income countries
- Developing scalable, reproducible, and enduring educational materials and standards for building clinical research capacity in low-resource environments
Dr. Small notes that the theme for the ASCO 2026 annual meeting is “The Science and Practice of Translation: Improving Cancer Outcomes Worldwide.” Examples of ASCO’s global scope at the annual meeting are to have discussants contextualize annual meeting science to resource-constrained environments, have ASCO Voices in native languages, have a Global Cancer Care session, and have educational sessions focused on global oncology. This year’s annual meeting will also have a joint ASCO-European Cancer Organization (ECO) session discussing “Cancer Screening and Early Detection – New Approaches in a Changing Environment.”
Presented by: Eric J. Small, MD, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, UCSF, San Francisco, CA
Written by: Zachary Klaassen, MD, MSc – Urologic Oncologist, Associate Professor of Urology, Georgia Cancer Center, Wellstar MCG Health, @zklaassen_md on Twitter during the 2026 Advanced Prostate Cancer Consensus Conference (APCCC), Lugano, Switzerland, Thurs, April 30 – Sat, May 2, 2026.