Secondary Breast Cancer Patient Summit 2025

Our Secondary Breast Cancer Patient Summit returned to Liverpool in June for three days, with 529 in-person and online attendees. The Summit is the only national patient-focused conference in the UK for secondary (metastatic) breast cancer, designed to empower our community through increased knowledge and understanding of research, treatments and options.

We were delighted to have been joined by 26 speakers from the breast cancer sector who shared latest developments for each breast cancer sub-type; information about clinical trials, palliative care, and what really happens at an MDT; and gave advice on exercise and nutrition.

We were thankful to everyone that attended and to our generous sponsors who enabled us to give 110 fully-funded places for this event to our community.

Watch the Summit 2025 sessions

Each of the sessions were recorded, including the question and answer times, so that you can watch them at your own pace.

summit playlist

Programme

Day 1 - Monday 16 June

Time	Activity	Speaker
2 - 2.15pm	Conference Welcome	Prof Carlo Palmieri & Lesley Stephen
2.15 - 3pm	Bringing advanced breast cancer (ABC) to Centre Stage: the ABC Global Alliance	Dr Fatima Cardoso, founder of ABC Global Alliance
3 - 3.45pm	Coping better with treatment side effects	Sarah Adomah
4 - 4.45pm	In conversation with… Ashley Dalton MP & Dr Liz O’ Riordan	Prof Dame Lesley Fallowfield

Day 2 - Tuesday 17 June

10 - 10.05	Welcome	Prof David Cameron
10.05 - 10.45am	Understanding the benefits of palliative care	Dr Daniel Monnery
10.45 - 11.15	Counting patients – a metastatic audit	Dr Mark Verrill
Parallel sessions
11.30 - 12.15pm	Treatments and trends in TNBC	Chair: Dr Marina Parton Presenter: Dr Olga Oikonomidou
11.30 - 12.15pm	Treatments and trends in HER2+	Chair: Prof Carlo Palmieri Presenter: Prof Iain McPherson
11.30 - 12.15pm	Treatments and trends in ER+	Chair: Prof Dame Lesley Fallowfield Presenter: Dr Sacha Howell
Parallel sessions
1.15 - 2.00pm	Sexual wellbeing: Dealing with the menopause and other intimacy issues	Chair: Dr Liz O’ Riordan Presenter: Dr Paula Briggs
1.15 - 2.00pm	Nutrition: How to spot a fad	Chair: Prof Dame Lesley Fallowfield Presenter: Aisling Pigott
1.15 - 2.00pm	Exercise: Is exercise medicine	Chair: Prof Carlo Palmieri Presenter: Dr Catherine Harper-Wynne
2.15 - 3pm	Shining a light into your cancer DNA: What is Genomics and how does it help?	Prof Ellen Copson
3.00 - 4pm	Everything you wanted to know about clinical trials, but were too afraid to ask	Prof Carlo Palmieri, Dr Bookie Ayodele, Melanie Tolson M2C Lead Clinical Trial Nurse, Lesley Stephen Patient Advocate

Day 3 - Wednesday 18 June

9.30am	Welcome	Prof Dame Lesley Fallowfield
9.35 - 10.15am	Radiotherapy and local therapies	Naman Julka-Anderson and Jo McNamara
10.15 - 11am	Demystifying MDTs – what really happens	Dr Marina Parton, session chair Clinical oncologist - Dr Jill Bishop, Medical oncologist - Prof Ellen Copson, Radiologist - Sheetal Sharma, Cancer Nurse Specialist - Donna Murray, Surgeon - Mr Mathew Rowland
11.30 - 12.15pm	Panel discussion: Everything you ever wanted to ask	Chaired by Prof Carlo Palmieri Panellists: Dr Marina Parton, Mr Matthew Rowland, Dr Fatima Cardoso, Donna Murray, Lesley Stephen, Dr Bookie Ayodele, Jo McNamara
12.15 - 12.30pm	Closing remarks	Prof Carlo Palmieri Sam Dixon, CEO Make 2nds Count

Prof Carlo Palmieri, Secondary Breast Cancer Summit Clinical Lead

The Secondary Breast Cancer Summit is the only national patient-focused conference in the UK for secondary (metastatic) breast cancer.

In response to invaluable insights from recent LIMBER and Metastatic Breast Cancer research studies funded by the Make 2nds Count, we've identified critical knowledge gaps within the secondary breast cancer community, and the Summit will address these. From disease understanding to clinical trials, treatment, and side effects, our bespoke event programme will meet the research information needs of the secondary breast cancer community. Our goal is to educate and empower patients, and help them feel more confident in their understanding of the disease.

Lesley Stephen, Secondary Breast Cancer Summit Patient Lead

I’m delighted that we are holding the Summit for the second year for patients with secondary breast cancer. I’ve been living with secondary breast cancer for 10 years, and in that time I have been to many cancer conferences with medical talks that can be difficult to follow if you don’t have a science background.

I’ve often thought it would be great to offer secondary breast cancer patients the opportunity to have their own conference, ask researchers and clinicians questions about their work and find out about the latest treatments, but all presented in a way that we patients can understand. I‘d encourage you to sign up for this unique event, enjoy the programme we are putting together for you and I look forward to seeing you in Liverpool in July.