Advocacy and Innovation at SABCS 2025 With Megan-Claire Chase and Jasmin Hundal, MD, MS, MPH

Experiences at SABCS

Ms. Chase, widely known in “Cancer Land” as Warrior Megsie, attended SABCS this year while celebrating a major milestone as a 10-year invasive lobular breast cancer survivor. Even while navigating the meeting with a sprained heel and a pink flowered cane matched to her signature vintage hats, she came with a clear purpose of representing the voices of those living with and surviving breast cancer. As she noted, “Even now being 10 years out, I still have a fear of recurrence. I still have a fear of a potential metastasis,” highlighting the often-invisible emotional landscape of survivorship that continues long after active treatment ends.

The Power of Being Seen: Patient Advocates at Scientific Meetings

Both Dr. Hundal and Ms. Chase emphasized how visible and vital the patient advocacy presence was at SABCS this year. From badges that read “patient advocate” to advocates leading poster sessions, their participation went far beyond symbolic representation. Dr. Hundal reflected that “it’s nice to see that the patient advocates are there, especially doing poster presentations and offering their very different, unique perspective” that enriches the conference for clinicians.

For Ms. Chase, the Patient Advocacy Lounge became a vital space of connection and belonging—a multicultural environment where people living with cancer, long-term survivors, and advocacy professionals came together. She described the atmosphere as “a real feeling of belonging and acceptance,” noting that “we were all there, and we’d all either gone through breast cancer, are living with breast cancer, are working at an advocacy organization, or all of the above.” Importantly, SABCS also gave clinicians and researchers direct access to patient voices in a setting where they can truly listen to the lived reality of the disease.

From Survivor to Co-Author: How Advocates Shape Research

Ms. Chase described her journey from a background in communications and theater to becoming a research collaborator and co-author. She admitted that “if you had told me pre-cancer that I would be a co-author of a poster and involved in study designs, I would’ve laughed,” but her engagement grew organically from being vocal and constantly learning. Researchers began to recognize the value she brought, telling her, “You bring value to this conversation; you bring value to this research that we want to do.”

At SABCS, she presented a poster titled “Real-World Patient and Caregiver Experiences with Breast Cancer at Risk of Recurrence in the US” (PS-04-17), which focused on how survivors and caregivers talk about fear of recurrence in online spaces. She emphasized that “just because we’re in survivorship, we’re still going through it mentally, emotionally, and physically.” While she admitted to occasionally feeling a sense of imposter syndrome, asking herself, “What am I doing here with these brilliant oncologists and researchers? I’m just a little old cancer survivor,” her presence proved that patient experience is a form of expertise that is indispensable to the scientific community.

Survivorship, Side Effects, and the Language of Care

The conversation also delved into the complex reality of long-term treatment and the debilitating side effects that often lead patients to stop medication. Dr. Hundal highlighted how aromatase inhibitors are often discontinued, with “non-adherence” frequently cited as the reason, but she challenged this framing by stating, “That should not be the word. It’s not the adherence issue. It’s the issue that is behind why the patient is not adherent.”

For many, side effects like bone and joint pain are so severe they become a barrier to daily life. Ms. Chase shared her own struggle, noting that although she was supposed to be on endocrine therapy for a decade, she has been on no medication for nine years due to severe reactions. She voiced the frustration many survivors feel when balancing survival with quality of life: “If you’re telling us, ‘Hey, you need to be on this medication even if it’s giving you all this joint pain and you can’t get out of bed,’ it’s like, what did I go through all this cancer for? I need to live now. I want to live.” Both agreed that survivorship research must treat quality of life as a central priority rather than a secondary concern.

Technology, Wearables, and the Future of Personalized Care

Dr. Hundal also presented research on the use of wearable technology (abstract PS1-04-26), such as Fitbits or Apple Watches, to monitor patients in real time. She believes that “digital health has such a big promise; we might be able to catch things a lot earlier than before they actually happen” by tracking changes in heart rate, sleep, and activity.

Ms. Chase was cautiously optimistic but raised important questions about equity and inclusion, particularly for older populations. She noted that “I love technology, but I don’t ever want us to lose the human connection and the human eye as well,” expressing concern that older adults might be “getting left out of that conversation as the technology improves.” She hopes that as research moves toward personalization and precision, technology will be used to validate patients’ experiences rather than replace the human touch. As she concluded, “Your patient experience and your voice matters, and that’s what helps drive the research,” reminding both clinicians and advocates that the most powerful tool in medicine remains the partnership between the doctor and the person they are treating.

Key Takeaways

• Survivorship is a lifelong journey: Fear of recurrence and physical side effects persist long after the “all clear,” requiring long-term survivorship plans.
• Advocates are research assets: Lived experience provides a unique data set that helps researchers identify gaps in care, particularly in how patients communicate outside the clinic.
• Reframe “non-adherence”: Clinicians should look past the label of non-adherence to understand the quality-of-life issues and side effects driving treatment discontinuation.
• Inclusive Innovation: While wearables and AI offer exciting monitoring possibilities, they must be designed with digital literacy and physical constraints (like lymphedema) in mind.
• The power of presence: Patient advocates belong in the rooms where research is presented, as their voices are what ultimately drive more meaningful and personalized medical advancements.

About the Speakers

Megan-Claire Chase is a patient advocate and the Breast Cancer Program Director for SHARE Cancer Support. As a survivor of stage IIA invasive lobular breast cancer, Ms. Chase became involved in patient advocacy work after completing her treatment. She is a prolific writer, blogger, and public speaker, having been featured in the New York Times, in People Magazine, and on PBS’s “Beyond Cancer” episode of “Stories from the Stage.” Her story and work are documented in her blog “Life on the Cancer Train.”

Jasmin Hundal, MD, MS, MPH, is a third-year Hematology/Oncology Fellow at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. Previously, she completed her Internal Medicine Residency at the University of Connecticut. Dr. Hundal’s main area of interest is the overlap between cardiometabolic health and cancer, particularly for breast cancer patients and survivors. Outside of work, she enjoys traveling, cooking, and hiking.