ESMO Congress 2026

In endometrial cancer, pre-operative risk stratification has long been a clinical challenge. A retrospective audit covering 140 consecutive newly diagnosed endometrial cancer patients in the South Island of New Zealand showed that only 53% of patients with grade 1 tumours on initial biopsy ultimately met the definition of low-risk disease; even when combined with ultrasound endometrial thickness of less than 20 mm, no myometrial invasion, no cervical involvement and no adnexal metastasis, the probability of low-risk disease only rose to 76%, and the authors concluded that the low-risk population could not be accurately defined ^[1]. On the patient side, a three-year social network analysis of the hashtags #endometrialcancer, #uterinecancer and #wombcancer showed that engagement peaked in 2023 during Uterine Cancer Awareness Month (302 users, 731 interactions) and declined in 2024 to 237 users and 484 interactions, with themes shifting from general symptom awareness toward advanced and recurrent disease ^[2]. Case reports have also documented complex phenotypes: a 40-year-old woman with synchronous endometrial and breast cancer ^[3], and a 51-year-old woman with synchronous cecal cancer and uterine carcinosarcoma who was definitively diagnosed with Lynch syndrome through detection of a pathogenic germline MSH2 mutation ^[4].

At #ESMO26, live posts from @EisaiUS disclosed two endometrial cancer-related items: first, survey findings on how chemotherapy impacts the daily lives of people living with endometrial cancer, with the company saying it aims to understand what matters most to this community; second, translational insights in advanced endometrial cancer, presented as a poster that day, with the post stating that such analyses deepen understanding of the disease and inform research. The live posts disclosed no sample size, endpoints, or any specific figures from the translational analyses; as of this writing there is no independent main-site news and no conference abstract paraphrase, so the specific data remain to be confirmed.

In terms of direction, the patient survey places the focus on daily-life experience during chemotherapy, echoing the literature's finding that patient-community themes are shifting toward advanced and recurrent disease ^[2]; the translational work seeks to deepen understanding at the level of disease biology, while previously documented synchronous dual primary cancers ^[3], Lynch-associated carcinosarcoma ^[4], and the mere 53% to 76% concordance of pre-operative stratification ^[1] all suggest substantial unresolved questions in mechanisms and stratification.

Limitations should also be noted: the live posts are conference-period communications with no citable figures; this topic has no main-site news or abstract paraphrase available for cross-validation; and the cited references are a retrospective audit, a social network analysis and case reports, with limited evidence levels and no direct trial link to what is being reported here, so no clinical significance should be inferred from them.