Welcome to COSA's 48th Annual Scientific Meeting

The theme for the 2021 ASM is “Cancer care and research: Learning from the past and improving the future”. We have chosen this theme because we cannot ignore the challenges of last year, rather there is much to learn and implement now and into the future. Additionally, your feedback from the delegate evaluations from previous years indicates that you would like us to build on recent ASM topics rather than introduce all new themes. In terms of clinical themes, the program will have a focus on immunotherapy. This theme was very well received when we last featured it in 2017. There has been a lot of progress since, and in disease areas other than melanoma, so we hope to feature new research and ground-breaking treatments for diseases such as breast and lung cancers. We will also have a focus on PROMs and PREMs – convenor’s privilege as this is of personal interest to me – but will also build on the excellent presentations in last year’s program. Lung cancer screening is very newsworthy at present, so we are pleased to include a session highlighting it. Other contemporary topics will include sessions on controversies in cancer, such as voluntary assisted dying and medicinal cannabis. We cannot let the opportunity pass to reflect on the COVID-19 pandemic – what we have learned, changes to patient outcomes and practice.