Breast cancer is one of the most common malignant tumors in women, and its treatment and management strategies are crucial for improving patients’ prognosis and quality of life. Early breast cancer refers to lesions confined to the breast and regional lymph nodes (N1 stage) without distant metastasis. Thanks to the improvement of screening techniques, the detection rate of early breast cancer has increased. The “early diagnosis and early treatment” model has led to a decrease in breast cancer mortality, especially among young women. The 2024 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) clinical practice guideline for the diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up of early breast cancer aims to provide comprehensive and standardized recommendations for the diagnosis and treatment of early breast cancer, helping clinicians make optimal decisions. This article interprets the main content of the guideline in order to provide references and assistance for the current clinical diagnosis and treatment of early breast cancer in China.
The 2024 World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC) and the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Annual Meeting, two of the most prestigious events in oncology, have concluded sequentially. As the most authoritative annual gatherings in lung cancer and the entire oncology field, the WCLC and ESMO conferences brought together top oncology experts and scientists from around the world to share, discuss, and publish the latest cutting-edge advancements in oncology. In both conferences, lung cancer immunotherapy remained a hot topic of considerable interest. This article aims to summarize and discuss the important research progress on perioperative immunotherapy for non-small cell lung cancer reported at the two conferences.
In 2026, the European Society for Medical Oncology issued an express update to its Clinical Practice Guideline for Localised Colon Cancer. On the basis of randomised evidence from the CHALLENGE (CCTG CO.21) trial, patients with stage Ⅲ or high-risk stage Ⅱ colon cancer who had undergone curative resection and completed standard adjuvant chemotherapy. This article interprets the new recommendations, eligible population, exercise dose, level of evidence, key findings of the CHALLENGE trial, and practical implications for translation into general surgical practice in China. The guideline emphasises that healthcare professionals should inform eligible patients of the potential survival benefit of structured exercise and, after assessing their physical fitness, comorbidities, personal preferences, adherence barriers and financial burden, use shared decision-making to determine whether to recommend participation in a structured exercise programme. The CHALLENGE trial showed that a 3-year structured exercise programme improved disease-free survival and overall survival; however, its target population mainly comprised patients with good performance status who had completed standard adjuvant chemotherapy, and implementation requires trained personnel, behavioural support and integration into follow-up systems. This update indicates that postoperative management of localised colon cancer is moving beyond recurrence surveillance toward quantifiable and evaluable proactive rehabilitation. In China, localised exercise-prescription pathways should be explored through multidisciplinary collaboration, taking into account surgical recovery, anastomotic or stoma-related issues, baseline physical function and available healthcare resources.