07 January 2026
What would be needed to integrate the use of digital tools, such as apps and wearables, as well as the power of artificial intelligence, into the care of early breast cancer patients? A roadmap has been developed to fill in the knowledge gaps that still hamper evidence-based answers to this question.
The Lucerne Consortium, a multidisciplinary group of European cancer societies and researchers that creates guidelines for early breast cancer care, published, in the December issue of the journal The Lancet Oncology, the conclusions of its Lucerne Toolbox 3 initiative, which pave the way to better treatment for patients in early stages of breast cancer.
The Lucerne consortium has already presented consensus recommendations for locoregional therapy after primary systemic therapy and for axillary management in early breast cancer. Now comes the turn of digital tools and AI.
The authors of this latest report include Maria João Cardoso, breast surgeon at the Champalimaud Foundation (FC), in Lisbon, and director of its Breast Cancer Research Program; Pedro Saint Maurice, principal investigator of the FC’s Physical Activity and Quality of Life lab, and associate director of the Breast Cancer Research Program; and colleagues from several other countries in Europe and elsewhere. According to the authors, digital tools and AI can make the whole journey of a woman with early breast cancer safer, more personalised and more efficient.
The Lucerne Toolbox 3 initiative addresses the pressing need for an evidence-based integration of digital health and AI technologies in early breast cancer care. In order to achieve this, the tools must be tested in properly designed and controlled clinical trials, built around patients’ needs.
Using a structured voting process that involved 112 members from 27 countries and 16 medical societies, trial groups, and patient organisations, agreements were reached on which are the most urgent questions to study. This consensus strategy allowed the consortium to identify 15 crucial medical knowledge gaps across the patient journey, from diagnosis to treatment and survivorship, that need to be addressed first.
The experts highlighted gaps such as:
- How best to use AI to read mammograms
- How to adapt screening to each woman’s individual risk
- How to use digital tools to choose and adjust treatments
- How to monitor symptoms and side‑effects remotely
To address the 15 prioritised knowledge gaps in an evidence-based manner, the consortium then proposed 13 clinical trial designs.
Performing these trials could substantially improve breast cancer care, with more accurate and less invasive tests; treatments that are better tailored to each woman (AI could better predict who truly needs aggressive treatment); and easier and accessible support from home during and after treatment, helping to manage fatigue, pain, or mental issues that need a doctor’s attention.
In other words, the consortium has laid out a practical plan for how digital tools and AI should be tested and used to improve care for women with early breast cancer, from first screening through life after treatment.
This roadmap gives recommendations to researchers as to which digital and AI ideas should be tested next and how they should be tested, so that, based on scientific proof, early breast cancer care becomes more accurate, more personal, more convenient, and more equitable. It represents a foundation for advancing breast cancer care in the digital age.
Original article here
