Network-side and device-side methods and apparatuses improve transmit link adaptation for devices operating in a cellular network that have interference-canceling receivers. Own-cell link adaptation towards a device in a current transmission interval exploits a determined mapping between the interfering-signal cancelation efficiency of the device versus the interfering-signal transport format, in combination with actual knowledge of the transport format that will be used to make an interfering neighbor-cell transmission in the current transmission interval. For example, a serving radio node uses the known transport format of the interfering transmission, to accurately determine the expected cancelation efficiency for the device with respect to the interfering transmission, and uses the expected cancelation efficiency to obtain a more accurate estimate of the own-cell channel quality expected for the device in the current transmission interval. Link adaptation towards the device in the current transmission interval uses this more accurate estimate of own-cell channel quality.