Oncoger at SLAGO 2026: PROTEGER and clinical cases at the Oncogeriatrics Day

As part of the 11th Latin American Symposium on Oncological Gastroenterology (SLAGO 2026), held from April 22 to 24, an Oncogeriatrics Day was devoted entirely to the care of older people with cancer. Two members of the Oncoger team were part of the program: Dr. Gabriel Martínez presented the updates to the PROTEGER Plan and Dr. Gonzalo Navarrete led the clinical-cases session that closed the day.

The full-day session brought together geriatricians, oncologists, surgeons, radiotherapists, nutritionists, physiotherapists and psychologists around a single question: how to better decide and support the treatment of an older patient with cancer. The program opened with an overview of oncogeriatrics in Chile by Dr. Germán Gómez and covered topics such as nutrition, polypharmacy, radiotherapy, immunotherapy, prehabilitation in gastric and colorectal cancer, survivorship, mood disorders, physical exercise and cancer in people with neurocognitive disorders.

Updates to the PROTEGER Plan

The afternoon block began with the presentation by Dr. Gabriel Martínez, a geriatrician at Hospital Penco Lirquén, co-director of the Ministry of Health's telegeriatrics strategy and deputy director of the PROTEGER project. His talk brought the audience up to date on the plan's status: the machine-learning model that integrates oncology and comprehensive geriatric assessment data to support the systemic-therapy decision, its origin in the national Oncogeriatrics Telecommittee, the external validation published in the Journal of Geriatric Oncology and the clinical validation under way at centers in Chile, Peru and Brazil within CORFO's PRECISION-AI program.

Clinical cases: the decision in practice

The day closed with a clinical-cases session led by Dr. Gonzalo Navarrete —oncologist and geriatrician, medical director of PROTEGER and co-founder of Oncoger— together with Dr. Verónica Rojas and Dr. Daniela Meza. The format put into practice what had been discussed during the day: real patients in whom frailty, functional status, toxicity risk and personal preferences require individualizing the decision between treating, adapting the treatment or opting for supportive care.

For Oncoger, taking part in SLAGO has a particular value: digestive tumors are the most frequent group in the cohorts on which PROTEGER was developed and validated, and prehabilitation, nutrition and the treatment decision in gastric and colorectal cancer in older people are exactly the kind of clinical problem the platform was designed for.