2024 SABCS Meeting Magazine - 16

Origins of the SABCS®
From a motel to the forefront
of breast cancer research
In November 1978, before national campaigns like Breast
Cancer Awareness Month were established, a small group of
health care specialists met in a motel near the San Antonio
International Airport for a local breast cancer symposium. It's
still difficult to believe that less than 50 years later, this small
gathering in a motel conference room has evolved into the
world's largest breast cancer symposium.
The 2023 San Antonio Breast
Cancer Symposium® had recordsetting
attendance, with nearly
11,000 registered attendees from
more than 100 countries. Nearly
2,000 abstracts were submitted
and accepted, and more than half
came from outside the United
States. The Symposium has
become an annual international
showcase for groundbreaking
discoveries in every aspect of breast
cancer. As the saying goes, though,
16
great things can come from humble
beginnings.
William L. McGuire, MD, was the
division chief at The University of
Texas Health Science Center at
San Antonio (UTHSCSA) in the
Department of Medicine, Division
of Medical Oncology. The division
was relatively new, having been
distinguished from Hematology
only a few years earlier. Charles A.
Coltman Jr., MD, soon joined the
division as clinical director and
director of the Cancer Therapy
and Research Center (CTRC). Both
doctors were well-known, nationally
respected researchers, so Drs.
McGuire and Coltman decided in
1978 to establish a local breast
cancer symposium to educate
oncologists in San Antonio.
Educational opportunities from
leaders like Drs. McGuire and
Coltman were sorely needed. At
the time, radical mastectomies
were considered routine, and less
than one-third of women in the
United States over the age of 40
received mammograms. There
were some regional breast cancer
symposiums but no meetings on a
national scale.
While the scope of the meeting
would grow beyond its founders'
2024 SABCS®
| Meeting Magazine
2024 SABCS Meeting Magazine

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