President Dreyer February 2026

Dear Members and Friends of IGCS,

World Cancer Day—observed each year on February 4 and led by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC)—is a global initiative that brings together millions of individuals and organizations around a shared purpose: reducing the impact of cancer worldwide.

We at IGCS have learned through our own efforts that campaigns like World Cancer Day matter. These bold awareness programs bring people together across borders, disciplines, and systems. This year, World Cancer Day continues its three-year theme, United by Unique. In my 2025 message, I reflected on how deeply this theme resonates with us at IGCS—an organization defined by diversity of people, disciplines, and settings, yet united by a shared mission to improve outcomes for women with gynecologic cancers worldwide. This message remains true.

This year I would like to draw your attention to the Upside-Down Challenge, which is another World Cancer Day initiative encouraging individuals and organizations to share an upside-down image and begin their message with the phrase: “Cancer turned my world upside down.” Last year, over 1,000 people participated in the challenge.

Reflecting on the intention of the phrase, one instinctively understands its meaning. Many of us have experienced an event when the world as you know it stops, all your plans seem useless, your priorities change and the future is uncertain. As cancer professionals, we often witness how our patients feel overwhelmed and encounter “Upside-Down” moments where everything suddenly flips. In those moments, patients need steadiness, clear information, trusted guidance, compassionate care, and hope.

The relevance for IGCS as a society is that these are the things that we focus on and that we as women’s cancer professionals do without hesitation. It is by improving access to knowledgeable, compassionate care and best available treatment, and by embracing scientific progress that we want to contribute to turning their world “Upside-UP” again!

At IGCS we amplify patient voices and work toward more equitable, people-centered health systems through our advocacy programs. Through education, research, and collaboration, we share knowledge, strengthen global professional networks and interaction, and reinforce systems of care – all to translate discoveries into better outcomes for women everywhere. Our well-known training programs focus especially on surgery and radiation to help build local expertise where it is needed. Soon we will offer young professionals the chance of observation at several prestigious units globally, with more exciting opportunities to come!

As we join the World Cancer Day 2026 campaign, IGCS does so with intention and resolve. We work tirelessly to empower all our members to offer best care to patients whose lives are turned Upside-Down by gynecologic cancer. I know you share my vision of a future where all preventable cancers are prevented, and where disease outcomes are not determined by geography or circumstance.

I invite you to join the “Upside-Down” campaign with your own photo and message, and to reflect on how cancer alters our own and our patients’ perspectives.
I invite you also to be an active partner in the IGCS “Upside-Up” initiatives lead by a global community committed to restoring steadiness, dignity, and hope.

Sincerely,
Greta Dreyer, MD, PhD
IGCS President