Professionals from the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO) and Vall d’Hebron University Hospital actively participated in the 2026 Annual Congress of the European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO), one of the leading international meetings in the field of radiation oncology, held in Stockholm from May 15–19.
The congress, which brings together specialists from around the world, serves as a key platform for presenting advances in precision radiotherapy, artificial intelligence applied to radiation oncology, biomarkers, and strategies aimed at reducing treatment-related side effects.
At this year’s meeting, Dr. Laia Humbert-Vidan, researcher in VHIO’s Radiation Oncology Group, played a prominent role as chair of the session “Bridging worlds: Telemedicine for global cancer care”, which focused on the potential of telemedicine to improve cancer care worldwide.
In addition, she was an invited speaker at the international VALIDATE initiative symposium, where she delivered the presentation “Harnessing big data and predictive informatics for model validation: The potential of AI and data science”, highlighting the potential of artificial intelligence, big data, and data science for validating predictive models in radiation oncology.
Research led by VHIO was also featured in the digital poster highlight sessions. Dr. Sara Gutiérrez-Enríquez, Head of the Translational Genetics Laboratory within VHIO’s Hereditary Cancer Genetics Group, presented a study on blood microRNAs as novel genetic markers associated with late radiotherapy-related side effects in breast cancer patients. Dr. Laia Humbert-Vidan also presented a longitudinal analysis of patient-reported symptoms in head and neck cancer patients treated with radiotherapy according to TGFB1 genotype.
In addition, professionals from VHIO and Vall d’Hebron led four digital posters addressing different aspects of radiotherapy and its clinical effects. Topics included new surveillance strategies for mandibular osteoradionecrosis, factors associated with survival in ovarian cancer brain metastases, the use of patient-reported outcomes to guide radiation dose planning in cervical cancer, and the study of adverse events following stereotactic radiotherapy in lung tumors.
