Hello everyone, welcome to our monthly newsletter, October 2026 edition. This is a nostalgic moment because our first ever newsletter was October 2025. Thank you for joining along in this ride for a year. We appreciate your support.
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Exciting Announcements
BG Lab attended ESMO [The European Society for Medical Oncology] Annual Congress in Madrid, Spain, on Oct. 23rd – 27th! We had a very productive ESMO meeting. This was the first time we participated in ESMO together as a lab.
1. Kleida Mati was recognized at ESMO as a recipient for the ESMO Leadership and Career Development Award. She also presented a poster on Exploring regional variations in conflicts of interest reporting in oncology across Europe: Evidence from the ONCOTRUST-2 study.
2. Laure-Anne Teuwen graduated from the ESMO leadership program! She was recognized at a special dinner event by Prof. Fabrice Andre and Dr. Teresa Amaral.
3. BG was invited to give a lecture on “How to read and interpret a cancer clinical trial, discussing perspectives on critical appraisal from a practising clinician”. This was a very well attended session and BG later in a post thanked ESMO for highlighting the importance of correct interpretation, in addition to dissemination. He found that the audience interest in correct interpretation of clinical trials had greatly increased.
4. BG presented at a Proffered Paper (Oral) Session on drugs approved based on Phase 2 Evidence: Do FDA and EMA always agree? He showed how drugs approved based on P2 aren’t always for rare cancers or where RCTs are not feasible, and highlighted how EMA disagrees with FDA in almost half of the time for such drug approvals. BG was selected for ESMO Merit Award for this abstract, which he withdrew from because he was already an invited speaker.
5. Javier David Benitez Fuentes gave a Rapid Oral Session on Applying the Common Sense Oncology (CSO) checklist for phase III trials supporting European Medicines Agency (EMA) Lung Cancer approvals.
6. Javier also had a poster on Regional Inequality in Access to oncology clinical trials and cancer mortality in Spain.
7. BG and Laure-Anne had a poster on Cancer Drugs Approved for Curative Settings: Longer Durations but Smaller Benefits.
8. BG continued his annual tradition of making an ESMO highlights video with ecancer. This is now in its 11th year. In an X post, BG discussed why he continues to do this:
“People ask me why I continue to make these ASCO and ESMO highlights video every year. It’s a lot of work. You have your own sessions and meetings during these conferences- so it’s hard to find the time to stay up-to-date on almost every tumor type and comment on these trials on the spot. But I do it because I find it meaningful and I think it provides a service by bringing some nuance to the hype-only news that come out of these big meetings. When almost every post becomes an unqualified “great news” “gamechanger” or some other superlatives, I feel the need to make these videos more than ever. And it’s the viewers response that validates this effort.”
9. BG also interviewed Dr. Teresa Amaral, Head of the Early Phase Clinical Trials and the Skin Cancer and Sarcoma Program at Institut de Cancérologie Public Strauss Europe, Strasbourg; for the 11th episode of Grounded in Groundshot Podcast! Stay tuned.
Publications
1.Improved adverse event reporting: it’s about time → Dr. Laure-Anne Teuwen was the first author and BG was the senior author in this editorial published in JNCI that highlights why merely reporting the incidence and grade of adverse events in clinical trials of cancer medicines is not enough. They recommend that trials must also capture the full burden of the treatment on the patient’s quality of life. Duration, timing, and recurring symptoms are commonly overlooked in cancer trials and patient perspectives are limited. They offer this box of recommendations on improving adverse event reporting in clinical trials of cancer drugs.
2. Acute Oncology Services in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Current Evidence, Challenges, and Strategic Priorities → BG and Javier were part of a global team that published recommendations for acute oncology services in LMICs that can prioritize early recognition, rapid treatment, and evidence-based emergency care. The authors propose tangible solutions and recommendations for acute oncology services, called Minimum Viable Acute Oncology Services (MVAOS), that can be used to standardize acute oncology care and save lives during oncology emergencies. These are designed to be able to rapidly identify and treat complications in cancer patients, without the need of expensive, hard-to-acquire technologies. A classic cancer groundshot example!
3. BG was a coauthor on a new policy review from Common Sense Oncology in partnership with EORTC, published in the Lancet Oncology. The article provides a set of recommendations for the reporting of health-related quality of life in randomised clinical trials evaluating adjuvant systemic therapies.
4. The unfulfilled promise of effective cancer medicines priced beyond reach → BG was a coauthor in this editorial published by the Common Sense Oncology group in The Lancet Oncology, highlighting the disconnect between discovering effective cancer medicines and ensuring they are accessible to the public. In particular, the editorial looks at the case of daraxonrasib and its US price tag of $40,000 per month per patient. While innovations like daraxonrasib are rightly celebrated, what is often hidden is the ethical dilemma of imposing financial toxicity and inequitable access to those living in LMICs.
5. Dr. Teuwen was a co-author on a recently published study on Attitudes of cancer patients toward ctDNA-based liquid biopsy for follow-up. This study evaluated patient perspectives on using liquid biopsies, which are minimally invasive tests that can detect cancer-related material in the blood, as opposed to traditional biopsies. The authors found that a profound ratio of patients preferred to use liquid biopsies in cancer care, even without understanding the complexity of ctDNA.
Trainee and Mentee News
1. Nicole Vorko attended the Conference of the International Papillomavirus Society (IPVS 2026) in Greece.
2. As highlighted earlier under ESMO news, Kleida Mati got selected for ESMO Career Development Award. Laure-Anne just graduated from ESMO Leadership Program. Javier had a rapid oral at ESMO. Javier, Kleida, Laure-Anne all had a poster at ESMO.
Media
1. Episode 10 of Grounded in Groundshot podcast is here! BG interviews Dr. Laure-Anne Teuwen, our co-investigator and past fellow – the first to graduate from BG Lab, and medical oncologist at the University Hospital of Antwerp, Belgium. We get to learn a lot about Dr. Teuwen, her global oncology work, and the future of BG Lab in this episode. Most importantly, we discuss what we are looking for in our fellows. So, if you want to be our fellow in the future, you must listen to this! The episode is available now on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.
2. BG spoke with CBC News The National and the radio on new studies linking ultraprocessed food with colon cancer or other health conditions like cognition or vascular brain injury. The main takeaway → don’t always eat UPF but if you’re eating it once in a while, don’t sweat about it.
3. Italian Media Oncoinfo had a very fascinating story on the global inequity in access to cancer medications, based on the Toronto Star article quoting BG. You can read it here, you will find the English version after the Italian version.
Talks, Presentations, and Meetings
1. Dr. Laure-Anne Teuwen now serves as a representative for Belgium on the ASCO Western Europe + Israel Advisory Group! Congratulations LA!
2. BG gave a talk at the Department of Oncology Grand Rounds at Queen’s University on How to Write an Academic Paper.
3. BG gave a talk at the International Gynecologic Cancer Society Annual Meeting in Montreal, Canada. He spoke on the Cost of Convenience and De-Escalation Trials.
Upcoming Events
1. BG Lab fellow, Dr. Kleida Mati will be visiting the BG Lab in person in November! We look forward to welcoming her.
2. On Nov. 7th, Laure-Anne will be presenting a masterclass with The Young Oncologists Committee (YOC) with the Belgian Society of Medical Oncology (BSMO); for first-year medical oncologists, specifically in the basics of chemotherapy.
3. BG will be giving a Keynote Speech at the Pre-doctoral Clinician-Scientist Regional Conference (2026) with Upstate Medical University on Saturday, November 14th.
4. On Nov 14th, Laure-Anne will also be giving a talk at the 4th Flemish post-ESMO meeting, on gynaecological cancer and will be a part of the expert panel!
5. On Nov. 16th, The Queen’s Department of Oncology is having their annual Oncology Research and Education Day – BG will be presenting on Mentorship, Critical Appraisal and Academic Development! Brian Shkabari will be giving an Oral Presentation for his work on the time delay in cancer drug approvals between the U.S FDA and Health Canada.
6. On Nov 23, BG is presenting at the AIOM Clinical Research Methodology Workshop. He will talk on cancer clinical trials and meaningful patient centric outcomes.
7. On Nov 24, BG is giving a talk on “How to critically evaluate a cancer clinical trial” to the members of Ontario Cancer Research Ethics Board.
8. BG is also participating at the CIHR Institute of Cancer Research Advisory Board Meeting.
From the Archives:
Today, we will share with you 3 JAMA Onc viewpoints BG authored which have a high educational value in the sense BG learned a lot while writing these.
1. The first was a piece on regulatory capture in the context of FDA approval of adjuvant sunitinib for renal cell cancer. BG learned about the concept of regulatory capture while working on this piece. If you don’t know what it means, we highly encourage you to read it.
2. The second was a piece on how subgroup analysis can mislead physicians and patients while generating billion dollar revenues for the industry. This was in the context of pemetrexed in non-small cell lung cancer. For anyone interested in critical appraisal, this is a must read.
3. The third was a piece on how when two trials give conflicting results, most KOLs automatically believe that the positive was true positive, but negative was false negative. This was in the context of atezolizumab in triple negative breast cancer, and BG argues that the negative trial was true negative but the positive one was false positive. Also discusses the issue of hierarchical testing.
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Thank you for reading and stay tuned for next month’s update!
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