European Respiratory Society (ERS) Congress Review 2026
ERS Congress 2026: Earlier Detection, Smarter Monitoring and More Personalized Respiratory Care
Barcelona, Spain | September 2026
The European Respiratory Society (ERS) Congress 2026 brought together clinicians, researchers, industry partners and patient advocates under the theme "United for better breathing: partnership between patients, clinicians and researchers." A clear message emerged: respiratory care must identify disease earlier, intervene sooner and use data more effectively to personalize treatment and improve outcomes.
Although digital health, artificial intelligence (AI) and new physiological measurements featured prominently, discussion focused on embedding technologies within effective care pathways to deliver meaningful clinical benefit, not adopting them for their own sake.
Moving Beyond Reactive Care
Across COPD, asthma, bronchiectasis, pulmonary fibrosis and lung cancer, sessions focused on intervening before irreversible disease progression occurs. Presentations highlighted growing interest in pre-COPD, early disease detection and risk-based screening approaches that could enable preventative interventions and improved long-term outcomes.
During a State of the Art Session on Airway Diseases, Professor Liam Heaney stressed the need to identify and act during a “window of opportunity” by recognising severe asthma patients at high risk of poor outcomes early, while at Boehringer Ingelheim’s lunchtime symposium titled “Empowering Pulmonary Fibrosis Care: overcoming hurdles for faster treatment”, Professor Phil Molyneaux highlighted the importance of screening patients for risk factors to inform care pathways, monitoring regularly and empowering patients to report change in order to optimize treatment pathways.
Speakers emphasized that earlier diagnosis is insufficient without practical referral pathways, accessible diagnostic services, clinician confidence and patient engagement. Persistent primary-care barriers include limited access to high-quality respiratory testing and uncertainty in interpreting physiological data.
For respiratory healthcare systems, the challenge is no longer whether earlier detection is desirable, but how to translate screening and monitoring technologies into interventions that demonstrably improve patient outcomes.
The Growing Importance of Data Interpretation
Interpretation support featured extensively across scientific sessions, with research exploring applications ranging from AI-supported spirometry interpretation and ECG-based COPD detection to quantitative imaging analysis and acoustic biomarkers. Yet one of the strongest messages from ERS 2026 was that technology must support clinical decision-making rather than simply generate additional data.
AI-based interpretation tools have potential to improve diagnostic accuracy and support interpretation, particularly in primary care settings. At the same time, delegates repeatedly raised concerns about workforce pressures, training gaps and the challenge of translating complex physiological outputs and data into actionable clinical decisions.
This reinforces the growing need for solutions that combine accurate measurement with interpretation support, education and workflow integration.
Oscillometry Continues to Gain Clinical Relevance
A notable physiological trend at ERS 2026 was an evolving discussion around the use of oscillometry alongside spirometry. Research across asthma, COPD, bronchiectasis, interstitial lung disease and pulmonary fibrosis suggested that it may reveal small-airway dysfunction and early disease processes not always captured by traditional spirometry alone.
Investigators increasingly view oscillometry not as a replacement for spirometry but as part of a multimodal physiological assessment strategy. Real-world implementation challenges remain, including access, device standardization, reference equations and between-device variability, but interest is growing in its use for patient phenotyping, disease monitoring and integration into diagnostic guidelines.
Remote Monitoring Must Deliver Meaningful Outcomes
Home spirometry, digital inhalers and remote monitoring featured widely. Evidence suggested that continuous monitoring can reveal treatment response, diurnal variation and impending exacerbations, although patient engagement, education and data interpretation remain critical challenges.
Digital tools should be evaluated within clearly defined pathways specifying the signal measured, who acts on it, and the resulting clinical intervention. Without these elements, even sophisticated technologies may not improve care.
New Opportunities for Clinical Trials
ERS 2026 also highlighted how respiratory clinical trials are evolving beyond traditional endpoints including discussion of composite endpoint development. Investigators reported increasing use of physiological phenotyping, imaging biomarkers, inflammatory markers and digital measurements to better characterize disease progression and treatment response.
Growing interest was seen in:
Objective cough monitoring as an outcome measure for research in chronic respiratory conditions
Advanced pulmonary-function analytics derived from existing spirometry manoeuvres
Improved quality-control and data-integrity monitoring
Remote and decentralized endpoint collection
Integration of datasets to support predictive modelling and personalized medicine approaches
These developments reflect a broader shift towards richer, patient-centred evidence generation that seeks to understand not only whether therapies work, but which patients derive the greatest benefit and why.
Looking Ahead
Perhaps the most important insight from ERS Congress 2026 is that respiratory care is entering an era of connected monitoring and personalized medicine. Advances in physiology, digital health, machine-learning-driven interpretation, workflows and remote monitoring could support earlier detection and more effective intervention. Success, however, will require accurate measurement combined with education, interpretation support, clinical workflows and meaningful patient engagement.
For clinicians, researchers, and clinical trial sponsors, the direction is clear: the future lies not in collecting more respiratory data, but in generating actionable insights that improve patient outcomes.
Authors
Helen Venn, Chief Science & Strategy Officer, Vitalograph
Luke Howlett, Cardio-Respiratory Physiologist, Vitalograph