World Cancer Day 2026: Continuing the theme of “United by Unique”

Each World Cancer Day theme is a focus for 3 years, to allow for deep exploration of complex issues, to maximize global awareness, and to drive long-term action with future planning for cancer treatment and management. 2026 is the second year of the “United by Unique” theme, which places people at the center of care, and their stories at the heart of the conversation.

As shown in the 2025 World Cancer Day impact report, this theme has already achieved great success in bringing the global cancer community together to raise awareness of the need to create a future in which care and support is personalized, compassionate and accessible to all. Cancer care is too often centred on the disease, the subtype, and the staging, without consideration for the person receiving the diagnosis, and the need for their voice in determining the best treatment decisions. In an emotionally and physically challenging time, people living with cancer do not always feel heard, seen or understood; they can feel helpless navigating healthcare systems with which they are unfamiliar, and alone in the challenges they face. People-centred cancer care encourages everyone in the cancer care community to rethink and refocus how to approach the delivery of healthcare and cancer services, and how best to tailor these to each individual’s needs.

Jenny Tucker, Associate Editor at PLOS One, attended the European Association for Cancer Research (EACR) congress in June 2025, which included sessions related to this World Cancer Day’s theme, such as Eileen White’s keynote lecture on cancer metabolism, which linked into survivorship and quality of life; this session focused on novel findings in cancer cachexia research, where improving patient wellbeing was the focus over cancer-modifying treatments. In November 2025, Alex Tosun, Senior Editor at PLOS Medicine, attended the 8th ABC Consensus Conference (ABC8) in Lisbon. ABC8 has been a strong promoter and supporter of global collaboration and the shared mission to improve the lives of those living with advanced breast cancer. With around 1,500 participants from over 100 countries in attendance, ABC8 fostered meaningful dialogue among patients, advocates, clinicians, researchers, and policymakers. Each group brought unique perspectives to advance consensus on care, quality of life, and equitable access to treatment. Both conferences emphasized that real progress in cancer depends on valuing each individual’s experience, and patients’ wellbeing, as much as scientific innovation, echoing the theme of “United by Unique”.

Building on the wider theme, World Cancer Day 2026 is investigating how personal stories may become advocacy tools, so we took this opportunity to connect with our external editors and understand how they relate to this theme, and how it may be applicable in their research.

Dr Justin C Brown, Director of the Exercise and Cancer Biology research program at Advent Health and a PLOS One Section Editor, and Professor James Brenton, a senior group leader at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute and a PLOS Medicine Academic Editor, provide their insights around the theme, its application within scientific research, communication of research findings, and how their roles can help ensure greater consideration of the individual in cancer. Strong themes and shared views arose from their responses, with an overall need for increased collaboration between researchers and patients or patient advocates to strengthen research, improve the use of alternative approaches to communicating research findings, and to utilize technologies which allow for personalized cancer care. 

What are your thoughts on the World Cancer Day theme of “United by Unique” which prioritizes people-centred care and the unique needs of each individual? How does this impact the research undertaken by yourself and your colleagues?

Justin Brown: The World Cancer Day theme “United by Unique” resonates strongly with exercise, lifestyle, and survivorship research, where inter-individual variability is not the exception but the rule. Cancer and its treatments affect physical function, fatigue, cardiometabolic health, and quality of life in profoundly different ways, shaped by age, comorbidities, treatment exposure, baseline fitness, and social context. A people-centered approach, therefore, requires us to design and evaluate interventions, such as physical activity, that can be adapted to the needs, preferences, and capacities of each individual rather than applied uniformly. In my own research, this perspective has led to a focus on outcomes that matter to patients across the cancer continuum, including functional capacity, symptom burden, and long-term health beyond disease control alone. Exercise and lifestyle trials increasingly emphasize personalization, feasibility, and real-world implementation, recognizing that survivorship is not a single phase but a dynamic process that evolves over time. This approach aligns closely with the “United by Unique” theme, as it acknowledges that improving cancer outcomes includes supporting how people live during and after treatment, not just how long they live.

James Brenton: Our major challenge is to achieve the promise of truly personalized cancer care by bringing relevant technologies to the clinic and by developing more informative and innovative clinical trial designs. Building on major advances using immunotherapy must be led by science and open approaches to combining medicines for patient benefit.

Cancer research, be it for treatment, diagnoses or basic understanding, requires input from a broad range of expertise, including science, medicine, healthcare, policy and patient advocacy. What do you see as the key challenges in this? What opportunities does it provide?

James Brenton: Co-production with patients is essential to develop better and more effective clinical trials, clinical studies and experimental medicine studies. I also feel that stronger growth and enhanced support for patient advocacy, reflecting its critical inputs, will enable better trials for patients.

Justin Brown: Exercise and survivorship research also highlights the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration. Effective studies in this space often require integration across oncology, rehabilitation, behavioral science, physiology, implementation science, and patient advocacy. One of the main challenges is aligning methodological standards and expectations across these disciplines, particularly when traditional clinical trial frameworks are applied to complex, behavior-based interventions. At the same time, this collaboration creates opportunities to generate more holistic and translatable research that can be embedded into routine care and scaled across diverse healthcare settings.

How do you feel about the communication of cancer research to a wide audience? What would you change or recommend to make it more accessible to non-specialists? And what might the role of publishers be?

Justin Brown: Clear communication is especially important for exercise and lifestyle research, where misinterpretation can lead to either unrealistic expectations or undue skepticism. Research findings must be communicated in ways that are precise but accessible, clearly distinguishing between what is known, what is emerging, and what remains uncertain. Plain-language summaries, visual abstracts, and contextual editorials can help non-specialists understand how lifestyle interventions fit alongside standard cancer care. Publishers play a critical role by supporting these formats and encouraging clarity without compromising scientific rigor.

James Brenton: I think a novel approach might be to ask authors to work with patient groups to write (and sign) lay summaries that put the work in context for press releases and use on journal web sites. 

How does or could your role as a PLOS Editor help ensure more research considers the role of the individual in any treatment approach?

James Brenton: Understandably the focus as an academic editor is on scientific quality of manuscripts and ascertaining whether the work has wide benefit to patients. If authors can demonstrate involvement of patient groups (or other diverse research inputs) this can only strengthen submissions.

Justin Brown: As a Section Editor, I see an opportunity to help shape the field by prioritizing research that meaningfully incorporates the individual experience of cancer and survivorship. This includes work that integrates patient-reported outcomes, examines heterogeneity of response, and addresses implementation and equity. By highlighting studies that recognize exercise and lifestyle interventions as core components of people-centred cancer care, editorial leadership can help ensure that survivorship research continues to evolve in ways that reflect both scientific advancement and the lived realities of those affected by cancer.

Recent publications in PLOS investigate related themes, including considering lowered screening cutoffs for anxiety in patients with cancer, inequalities in cancer mortality between people with and without disability, shared decision-making and deprescribing for persons living with cancer in their last phase of life, andcancer survivors’ experiences getting back on track after cancer treatment.