ERS Congress 2026 in Barcelona: The Most Anticipated News for Respiratory Medicine
By Prof. Luca Richeldi
From September 5 to 9, 2026, Barcelona will host the ERS Congress, the annual congress of the European Respiratory Society, one of the most important events in the world for pulmonologists, researchers, healthcare professionals, and patients interested in respiratory health. The 2026 edition will have the theme "United for Better Breathing: Partnership between Patients, Clinicians and Researchers," which is an invitation to build better care through closer collaboration between patients, clinicians, and scientific research.
The message is clear: the future of respiratory medicine will not be made up just of new drugs or new technologies, but also of more shared pathways, smarter data, and more listening to the real needs of people living with lung diseases.
Patients at the center: from participation to co-creation of care
One of the main themes of the congress will be the active role of patients.
ERS emphasizes that patients' and caregivers' perspectives will be at the heart of the program, with support from the European Lung Foundation to help sessions and scientific assemblies better include these voices. It's not just about "listening" to patients, but involving them in decision-making, setting research priorities, and organizing care pathways. This approach will be especially relevant in chronic diseases, where treatment adherence, quality of life, rehabilitation, and daily management are just as important as the diagnosis. Artificial intelligence, omics, and precision medicine Among the hottest topics are artificial intelligence, advanced imaging technologies, patient-derived organoids, iPSCs, and multi-omic analyses. ERS explicitly points to the use of spatial multimodal omics and AI to understand, diagnose early, and predict lung diseases as one of the congress's priority areas.
The direction is towards increasingly personalized pulmonology: not just “what disease does the patient have?”, but “which biological subtype, which evolutionary risk, which likely response to treatment?”. In this context, epigenetics, biomarkers, and data science could become decisive tools for anticipating the progression of complex diseases like fibrosis, severe asthma, COPD, and thoracic tumors. Asthma, COPD, and chronic cough: beyond the old boundaries Airway diseases remain a major chapter of the congress. The 2026 program includes topics such as new biologics for COPD, biologics and biosimilars for asthma, AI in airway diseases, early-onset COPD, and chronic cough. It’s an important shift: for years, biologic therapies were mainly associated with severe asthma, while today the debate is also moving towards specific COPD phenotypes and inflammatory mechanisms not always classifiable with old categories.
Chronic cough, often underestimated, is increasingly seen as a standalone clinical problem, with diagnostic and therapeutic needs still unresolved. Lung cancer: screening, liquid biopsy, and shared data The conference will also focus on thoracic oncology, with emphasis on lung cancer screening, liquid biopsy, new TNM staging, patient reassessment after neoadjuvant treatment, and dynamic guidelines for lung cancers, mesothelioma, and malignant pleural effusion. A particularly interesting topic will be turning screening into sustainable practice. A session on European projects will discuss the transition from SOLACE to the European Lung Cancer Screening Alliance, aiming to translate pilot experiences and initial national programs into scalable models across Europe. Palliative care in advanced COPD Among the most significant innovations, also on a cultural level, is the focus on the early integration of palliative care in COPD.