WORLD CANCER DAY 2026 – FROM KNOWLEDGE TO ACTION

THEME: “Time, Trust and Security – pathways to more patient-centered cancer care”

The theme is built on three fundamental pillars identified during a joint workshop as central to creating more patient-centered cancer care. By focusing on Time, Trust and Security, we aim to highlight concrete paths forward that lead to improved quality of life for patients and their loved ones throughout the entire cancer journey.

• TIME – is about ensuring the right care at the right time: from prevention and early detection to rapid diagnosis, person-centered and individually tailored effective treatment, rehabilitation, and palliative care. It also includes valuing the time of patients and their loved ones and minimizing waiting times.
• TRUST – is built on genuine collaboration between patients and healthcare providers. This requires the implementation of the Patient Act and person-centered care, transparent communication, respect for the patient’s knowledge of their own body and situation, and inclusion of the needs of loved ones.
• SECURITY – is created through predictable, equitable, and high-quality care, where patients and their loved ones feel confident that they will receive the best possible care regardless of where they live in the country or which type of cancer they are affected by.

Systematic patient involvement and quality-of-life perspectives serve as the common thread running through all three pillars. They are crucial for realizing the vision of person-centered cancer care and a life with and/or after cancer with good quality of life.

Through three breakfast discussions, we will explore the fundamental building blocks of future cancer care. We will discuss how TIME can be used more effectively through early detection and smart care processes, how TRUST is built through genuine collaboration between patients and healthcare providers, and how SECURITY is created through equal access to high-quality care regardless of where one lives.

The breakfast discussions will provide valuable insights from clinical practice, the research frontier, and the patient perspective. We will hear concrete examples of what works, identify obstacles that must be overcome, and draw inspiration from best practices that are already changing everyday life for cancer patients. After these three knowledge-building conversations, we will move on to the next step.

On World Cancer Day, February 4, we will bring all these threads together and lift our gaze toward the future. Decision-makers, healthcare professionals, researchers, industry representatives, and patient organizations will come together not only to discuss the challenges, but above all to identify the tools we already have—and those that need to be developed—to achieve equitable cancer care.

During the day, we will explore how European initiatives such as the EU’s Cancer Plan and the National Cancer Mission Hub can accelerate progress in Sweden. We will challenge each other to move from words to action through concrete commitments, and we will demonstrate that when Time, Trust and Security work together, the conditions are created for what we all strive for: the best possible quality of life for everyone affected by cancer.

Welcome to join us in building bridges between vision and reality!