2025 Liver Cancer Symposium Agenda
SALCS 2025: celebrating 5 years!
October 9 - 11, 2025, San Antonio, Texas
Note: This is a preliminary agenda and is subject to change.
Thursday, October 9, 2025
| 7 - 7:50 am | Registration, Breakfast, and Exhibits |
| 7:55 - 8 am | Welcome and Introductions Lei Zheng, MD, PhD, Executive Director of Mays Cancer Center at UT Health San Antonio. Sukeshi Arora, MD, symposium co-chair, associate professor in the Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology at The University of Texas Health San Antonio, and leader of the gastrointestinal malignancies and geriatric oncology program at Mays Cancer Center. Danielle Fritze, MD, symposium co-chair and Associate Professor/Clinical of Surgery and holder of the Valero President’s Distinguished Chair in Transplantation at UT Health San Antonio. |
| Session 1 Epidemiology Moderator: Amelie Ramirez, MD, Mays Cancer Center at UT Health San Antonio | |
| 8 - 8:25 am | Texas/South Texas Liver Cancer Data Edgar Munoz, UT Health San Antonio |
| 8:25 - 8:50 am | Title TBD Subhash Chauhan, UT Rio Grande Valley School of Medicine |
| 8:50 - 9:15 am | Texas Collaborative Center for Hepatocellular Cancer Hashem El-Serag, Baylor College of Medicine |
| 9:15 - 9:35 am | Q&A |
| 9:35 - 10:10 am | Break, Networking, and Exhibition |
| Session 2 Year in Review Rapid Fire: HCC Moderator: Sukeshi Arora | |
| 10:10 - 10:30 am | Imaging Diagnostics Venkata S. Katabathina, UT Health San Antonio |
| 10:30 - 10:50 am | Hepatology Fred Poordad, UT Health San Antonio |
| 10:50 - 11:10 am | Hepatocellular Carcinoma - IR Updates Rajeev Suri, UT Health San Antonio |
| 11:10 - 11:30 am | Radiation Oncology Updates Neil Newman, UT Health San Antonio |
| 11:30 -11:50 am | Surgical/Transplant Oncology TBD |
| 11:50 am - 12:10 pm | Medical Oncology Updates Ahmed Kaseb, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston |
| 12:10 - 1:30 pm | LUNCH |
| 12:40 - 1:25 pm | Product Theater Natera |
| Session 3 Top 3 Oral Abstracts Moderator: Danielle Fritze | |
| 1:30 -1:45 pm | Abstract 1 |
| 1:45 - 2 pm | Abstract 2 |
| 2 - 2:15 pm | Abstract 3 |
| 2:15 - 2:30 pm | Award Presentation and Q&A |
| Session 4 Tumor Board: Metastases to Liver Case Discussions Moderator: Richard Tuli, MD, PhD, Professor and Chair of Radiation Oncology at University of South Florida Panel: Amy Le, Nicolas Vathuey, and TBD | |
| 2:30 - 3 pm | Case 1: Neuroendocrine tumor with liver metastases |
| 3 - 3:30 pm | Case 2 Colorectal cancer with bilobar liver-only metastases |
| 3:30 - 3:45 pm | Break, Networking, and Exhibition |
Session 5 Survivorship: Living with Liver Cancer Moderators: Sherri Cervantez, MD, and Michael Halpern, PhD, MD, MPH, UT Health San Antonio | |
| 3:45 - 4:05 | Symptom Support for Patients with Liver Cancer Sherri Cervantez, UT Health San Antonio |
| 4:05 - 4:25 pm | The Role of Rehabilitation in Cancer Cachexia Madeline Flores, UT Health San Antonio |
| 4:25 - 4:45 pm | Survivorship and Transplantation Jennifer Milton, UT Health San Antonio |
| 4:45 - 5 pm | Patient Advocate Story Jerry Drennan |
| 5 - 5:15 pm | Q&A |
| 5:15 pm | Day 1 Adjourns |
Friday October 10, 2025
| 7 - 8 am | Registration, Breakfast, and Exhibits |
Session 6 Plenary Speaker: Milind Javle, MD, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas Moderator: Sukeshi Arora | |
| 8:45 - 9 am | Q&A |
Session 7 Pre-Clinical and Translational Science of Liver Tumors Moderators: LuZhe Sun, PhD, UT Health San Antonio, and Peng Zhao, MD, PhD, UT Health San Antonio | |
| 9 - 9:20 am | Risk prediction and prevention of hepatocellular carcinoma Yujin Hoshida, UT Southwestern Medical Center |
| 9:20 - 9:40 am | Targeting MASH to prevent HCC Peng Zhao, UT Health San Antonio |
| 9:40 - 10 am | Immunotherapeutic barriers in the hepatic tumor microenvironment Won Jin Ho, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins Medicine |
| 10 - 10:20 am | ER Stress Exploitation in Cancer Cells: Innovative Strategy for HCC Therapy Ratna Vadlamudi, UT Health San Antonio |
| 10:20 - 10:40 am | Q&A |
| 10:40 - 10:55 am | Break, Networking, and Exhibition |
Session 8 Cholangiocarcinoma: Present and Future Moderator: Prabhleen Chahal, MD, MASGE, FACG, AGAF, UT Health San Antonio | |
| 10:55 - 11:15 am | Diagnostics - Advanced Endoscopy Matheus Franco, UT Health San Antonio |
| 11:15 - 11:35 am | Radiation Oncology Smith “Jim” Apisarnthanarax, University of Washington |
| 11:35 - 11:55 am | Surgery - Multi-modal approaches to intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma Timothy Pawlik, Ohio State University |
| 11:55 am - 12:15 pm | |
| 12:15 - 12:30 pm | Q&A |
| 12:30 - 1:30 pm | LUNCH |
| 12:40 - 1:30 pm | Breakout Session: Advanced Practice Provider Session Moderators: Kathy Crow, and Jake Sekula |
Session 9 Liver Tumor Board: HCC Outside Milan - Road to Transplant Moderator: Michael Cullen, National Cancer Institute; Jan Petrasek, UT Health San Antonio Panel: Maen Abdelrahim, Houston Methodist Neal Cancer Center Andrew Chesley, UT Health San Antonio James Welsh, MD Anderson Cancer Center Tarunjeet S Klair, UT Health San Antonio | |
| 1:30 - 2 pm | Case 1: Low-dose Radiation Therapy to HCC |
| 2 - 2:30 pm | Case 2: BCLC C |
| 2:30 - 3 pm | Case 3: Adjuvant Immunotheraphy After Transplant |
| 3 - 3:15 pm | Break, Networking and Exhibits |
| 3:15 - 5 p.m. | Poster Reception |
| 5 p.m. | Day 2 Adjourns |
Saturday, October 11, 2025: Update in Diagnostics and Management of Pancreatic Tumors
| 7 - 8 am | Registration and Breakfast |
| 8 - 8:30 am | Session 1 - Diagnostics for pancreas tumors Moderator: Danielle Fritze Speaker: Courtney Thomas, UT Health San Antonio |
| 8:30- 9 am | Session 2 - Pancreatitis-associated pancreatic cancer Moderator: TBD Speaker: Hari Sayana, UT Health San Antonio |
| 9- 9:30 am | Session 3 - Genetic predisposition syndromes for pancreatic malignancies Moderator: Mio Kitano, UT Health San Antonio Speaker: Jessica Jones, UT Health San Antonio |
| 9:30- 10 am | Session 4 - Robotic surgery for pancreatic cancer Moderator: Steven Abbate, Start Center for Cancer Care Speaker: Jin He, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine |
| 10 -10:15 am | Break |
| 10:15 - 10:45 am | Session 5 - Metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma Moderator: TBD Speaker: Christos Fountzilas, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center |
| 10:45- 11:15 am | Session 6 - Novel Targets for pancreatic adenocarcinoma (non-RAS) Moderator: Kyaw Aung, UT Health Austin Speaker: TBD |
| 11:15 am- 12:00 pm | Session 7 - Drug development for RAS Inhibition for pancreatic adenocarcinoma Moderator: Daruka Mahadevan, UT Health San Antonio Speaker: TBD |
| 8:30-9 am | Session 7A - Early phase drug development for pancreatic adenocarcinoma Speaker: Amita Patnaik, Start Center for Cancer Care |
| 8:30-9 am | Session 7B - RAS Inhibitors in phase 3 trials for pancreatic adenocarcinoma Speaker: Nilo Azad, Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center |
| 12 - 1 pm | Lunch |
| 1 pm | Symposium Adjourns |
San Antonio Liver Cancer Symposium
7979 Wurzbach Road | San Antonio, TX 78229 US
Telephone: +1 210-450-1550
Email: UTHealthMTG@uthscsa.edu