PROGRAM OUTLINE
Please note that this program is subject to change.
8:30 am
Plenary session
Opening ceremony
9:00 am
Plenary session
The ingredients of providing personalised care
This opening plenary explores the ingredients of truly personalised cancer care from advances in tumour-agnostic drug development and precision therapeutics to ensuring equitable access and person-centred care. Bringing together international expertise, clinical leadership, and lived experience, the speakers will examine how biology, therapeutics, health systems, and the patient voice intersect to deliver precision oncology that is scientifically robust, clinically actionable, and genuinely personalised.
10:30 am
Break
Morning tea, poster viewing and exhibition
11:00 am
Concurrent session
She's a good 85!
Frailty is increasingly recognised as a key determinant of outcome and patient experience amongst older individuals with cancer. This session will discuss the diagnostic approach to frailty for patients with cancer and review recommendations for the optimal multidisciplinary management of this often-reversible syndrome.
Concurrent session
Early onset colorectal cancer: insights across the care continuum
This session focuses on early onset colorectal cancer, with diverse presentations exploring the biological drivers of increasing incidence, understanding diagnostic pathways, a novel MDT clinical model and reflections on nursing care for younger adults, integrated with the perspectives of those with lived experience.
Concurrent session
Smoke, vapes and mirrors
Smoking remains the major known cause of cancer but smoking cessation is no longer the whole preventive story. First nation, CALD and cancer patients are vulnerable not only to smoking but to misinformation about vaping safety.
Best of the best orals
Best of the best oral presentations
Best of the best orals
Best of the best oral presentations
12:30 pm
Break
Lunch, poster viewing and exhibition
COSA meeting
COSA group meetings
1:30 pm
Plenary session
Hype or hope
Hyperbaric oxygen, homeopathy, high dose vitamin C, probiotics, repurposed medications and all manner of non-classical treatments are being investigated by our patients and their families. This session will examine whether these interventions are all hype or if they could, in fact, change our approach to cancer management.
4:00 pm
Concurrent session
Prehabilitation in oncology: running from evidence to impact
Prehabilitation is an adjunct process in modern cancer care, with growing evidence that multimodal interventions aimed at enhancing functional capacity and physiological reserve can improve cancer outcomes. This session will explore the evidence-base for prehabilitation, it's implementation in the oncology setting and future directions for people with cancer.
Concurrent session
Medicine matters for all
Medicines are central to cancer care. This session explores the evolving role of medicines in improving patient outcomes, safety, and access across the cancer journey. Through practical examples and multidisciplinary perspectives, we highlight innovations, challenges, and opportunities in optimising cancer medicines use in contemporary oncology practice.
Concurrent session
Screening — is hope overtaking reality?
Various aspects of cancer screening from high risk individual identification, liaison with GPs and recognition of barriers to personal participation are explored by speakers variously engaged in breast, lung, cervical and bowel screening.
Best of the best orals
Best of the best oral presentations
Best of the best orals
Best of the best oral presentations
5:30 pm
Pre-conference
Breakfast session
Head & neck cancer MDT
9:00 am
Plenary session
Living longer, living stronger: turning advanced cancer into chronic disease
Recent progress in the treatment of many advanced cancers has led to improvements in survival and growing numbers of metastatic cancer survivors. This session explores advances and challenges in metastatic survivorship care, from the perspectives of clinicians, consumers and researchers, and strategies to support survivors to live longer and stronger.
10:30 am
Break
Morning tea, poster viewing and exhibition
11:00 am
Concurrent session
Precision exercise medicine for personalised cancer care
Precision exercise medicine tailors exercise prescriptions for individuals, recognising that different exercise doses (frequency, intensity, time, type, volume and progression) elicit distinct physiological and functional benefits for cancer survivors. This session will explore the evidence-base for precision exercise medicine and provide recommendations to optimise personalised cancer care.
Concurrent session
Enabling equitable genomics-informed cancer care in Australia
This session will showcase the national genomics policy landscape for the integration of genomics in routine cancer care, including key initiatives towards implementation, and provide an opportunity to hear how the sector can be ready to incorporate genomics into cancer care for children and adults.
Concurrent session
It's not just bad luck: when your job or environment causes cancer
Preventable cancer can largely be identified with lifestyle choices on smoking, drinking, diet/exercise and being in the sun. However, cancer due to unavoidable workplace or environmental exposures generates huge community concern and is totally preventable. The scope of this burden and options for action will be explored.
Concurrent session
Fear of the big C: how cancer-related worry influences prevention, screening, risk communication, survivorship, and clinical care
Cancer-related anxiety influences decisions, behaviours, communication, and relationships throughout the cancer trajectory. This session explores how worry about cancer shapes prevention, screening, inherited risk communication, family dynamics, fear of recurrence, and clinical care. Presenters will offer insights into when anxiety is potentially helpful and activating, when it becomes harmful, and how clinicians can support patients and families experiencing cancer related worry.
Best of the best orals
Best of the best oral presentations
12:30 pm
Break
Lunch, poster viewing and exhibition
COSA meeting
COSA group meetings
1:30 pm
Plenary session
Tom Reeve Award and presentation
1:50 pm
Plenary session
It's in the numbers: connecting cancer data, practice and policy to deliver impact
How can health data drive real change? This plenary explores how evidence becomes impact, from research findings shaping policy, to real-world clinical data improving care, to dashboards translating insights into action at the point of care. Speakers share practical lessons, challenges, and opportunities for influence across systems and settings.
3:00 pm
Break
Afternoon tea, poster viewing and exhibition
COSA meeting
COSA AGM
Best of the best / rapid fire orals
Rapid fire oral presentations
4:00 pm
Concurrent session
Existential distress — assessment, therapeutic approaches, and new advances
Existential distress in cancer involves threats to meaning, identity, one's relationship with mortality, and is associated with reduced quality of life in advanced disease. This session brings together experts in psycho oncology, palliative care, and death anxiety to examine the assessment, key therapeutic frameworks, and emerging clinical approaches to managing existential distress.
Concurrent session
Lung cancer across the continuum: precision, protection and performance
Learn about the latest multidisciplinary updates in thoracic oncology. From precision liquid biopsy to minimising cardiotoxicity from radiotherapy. Learn how exercise oncology and novel nurse-led models of care can be implemented to optimise the care of patients with thoracic cancers.
Concurrent session
Cancer on my mind
Showcasing innovations in personalised oncology care in primary and secondary brain cancer, this session spotlights pre-existing and ongoing trauma in those affected. The key role of rehabilitation, including supportive care and functional interventions, as well as practical aspects including return to work and driving, and emerging treatments will be highlighted.
Best of the best orals
Best of the best oral presentations
Best of the best orals
Best of the best oral presentations
5:30 pm
Dinner symposia
COSA Cancer Pharmacists Group (CPG) educational dinner
COSA meeting
COSA group meetings
Pre-conference
Breakfast session
Breaking the age barrier: transforming age attitudes in health care
COSA sponsored breakfast session in partnership with the Australian Human Rights Commission
9:00 am
Plenary session
The cancer workforce we need: equity, culture, and care quality
This plenary explores how workforce culture, equity, and inclusion shape cancer care quality. Through multidisciplinary perspectives, speakers will examine global and local strategies to build a sustainable, diverse, and patient-centred oncology workforce, addressing structural barriers, supporting wellbeing, and strengthening systems to deliver equitable outcomes across all communities.
10:30 am
Break
Morning tea, poster viewing and exhibition
11:00 am
Concurrent session
Early menopause after cancer: multidisciplinary strategies for personalised care
Early menopause caused by cancer treatment can significantly affect younger women's physical and emotional wellbeing. This session brings together experts across oncology, endocrinology, nursing, psychosocial care, and a lived experience consumer to discuss evidence based, multidisciplinary strategies for supporting women experiencing medically induced menopause.
Concurrent session
AI and biomarkers in cancer care: from detection to decisions
Concurrent session
Beyond one-size-fits-all: personalised nutrition across the cancer care continuum
Evidence-based nutrition care optimises cancer outcomes when aligned to individual risk, treatment phase and patient priorities. Spanning prehabilitation to palliative care, this session explores multidisciplinary, system-integrated approaches to malnutrition and muscle health that improve survival, treatment tolerance, functional recovery and quality of life.
Delegate designed symposia
Submitted symposia
More information coming soon.
Delegate designed symposia
Submitted symposia
More information coming soon.
12:30 pm
Break
Lunch, poster viewing and exhibition
1:30 pm
Plenary session
We can build it… but will it embed? The realities of implementing cancer care innovations
Why is it so hard to implement cancer care interventions that we know work? This session brings together national leaders who have tried (and sometimes been challenged) to embed effective models of care and interventions into real-world practice. Across precision oncology, lung cancer screening, and exercise oncology - speakers will share their candid “warts and all” reflections on what helps, what hinders, and the practical lessons we can all use as researchers, clinicians, and consumers.
3:00 pm
Plenary session
COSA Presidential Lecture — COSAx (three TED-style talks)
Three short, high-impact talks across cancer care and research.
3:45 pm
Close
Conference close