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Richard R. Barakat, MD, was recently named President-elect of the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) and the International Gynecologic Cancer Society (IGCS). He will serve as President of both societies beginning in 2014. Dr. Barakat is Vice Chair, Clinical Activities, Department of Surgery;...
Many women who do not test positive for a BRCA mutation undergo additional ovarian cancer screenings and risk-reducing procedures, despite limited data to determine the effectiveness of these interventions among an average-risk population. Results of an analysis of data from 1,077 women who were...
Internationally renowned uterine cancer researcher and geneticist Paul Goodfellow, MD, PhD, will lead a new team of three researchers devoted to gynecologic oncology research at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research...
While carrying a BRCA 1 or BRCA 2 mutation was associated with a better prognosis in the 3-year period after diagnosis of invasive ovarian cancer, this short-term survival advantage did not lead to long-term survival benefit, according to a study published in the Journal of the National Cancer...
Several studies have suggested that short-term overall survival for women with ovarian cancer and BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations is better than that in patients without such mutations. Indeed, a recent report by Kelly L. Bolton, PhD, and colleagues indicated that 5-year overall survival was 36% for...
Women are 30% less likely to die of ovarian cancer if they have guideline-recommended treatment, yet nearly two-thirds of those with the disease do not receive it, often because they are cared for at hospitals that treat a small number of ovarian cancer patients. These are the findings of a study...
Patients with advanced ovarian cancer who undergo intensive treatment with chemotherapy that bathes the abdomen are significantly more likely to live longer than those who receive standard intravenous (IV) chemotherapy, according to a study that analyzed long-term follow-up from two landmark...
My odyssey with ovarian cancer started in May 2005, when I saw my gynecologist for an annual exam and mentioned an odd twinge I had been experiencing on my left side. A subsequent pelvic ultrasound followed by an MRI showed that my ovaries were enlarged, and my doctor warned me that the problem...
Higher prediagnosis body mass index (BMI) increases risk of overall and disease-specific mortality among women diagnosed with endometrial cancer, suggested a study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Physical activity was associated with reduced risk of all-cause, but not...
Most women with ovarian cancer are not receiving adequate treatment, as specified in National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Guidelines,1 and as a result are being deprived of the survival benefits correlated with guideline-recommended treatment, according to a study presented at the Society...
The current uncertainty regarding the relative frequencies of cancers of various anatomic sites in Lynch syndrome poses a difficulty in commenting on the syndrome’s overall cancer spectrum. It is even more vexing to address the order in which these cancers are prone to occur. What we do know is...
Lynch syndrome is an autosomal dominantly inherited disorder due to germline mutations in DNA mismatch repair genes. Mismatch repair mutation carriers are at increased risk of several cancers, with endometrial cancer being one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers in women with Lynch syndrome. In...
A two-step immunologic approach that includes a personalized dendritic cell vaccine for each patient followed by adoptive T-cell therapy holds promise for the treatment of recurrent ovarian cancer, according to results of two consecutive phase I studies presented at the American Association for...
For the first time at the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Annual Conference, scientific posters were included as part of the program. The ASCO Post captured some of the most interesting findings for our readers, including the following news briefs. The findings of these studies support ...
Positively charged gold nanoparticles are usually toxic to cells, but cancer cells somehow manage to avoid nanoparticle toxicity. Mayo Clinic researchers found out why and determined how to make the nanoparticles effective against ovarian cancer cells. The discovery is detailed in the current...
Maintenance therapy with the targeted therapy pazopanib (Votrient) extended progression-free survival in women with ovarian cancer who were disease-free following initial treatment with surgery and chemotherapy, according to results of a phase III trial presented at the 49th Annual Meeting of...
In the era of personalized medicine for cancer care, it was both surprising and encouraging to hear about a simple low-tech intervention delivered by women in the community that cut the rate of death from cervical cancer in India by about one-third. The intervention, a simple visual inspection...
The addition of bevacizumab (Avastin) to chemotherapy prolongs overall survival in women with metastatic cervical cancer compared with chemotherapy alone, according to the results of a randomized phase III study presented at the Plenary Session of the ASCO Annual Meeting.1 Women on the...
When I was 9 years old, a bout of nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain sent me to the emergency room. The physicians diagnosed appendicitis and rushed me to the operating room. But what the surgeon found instead was a 10-cm-wide, grade 2, immature teratoma. In 1968, treatment for malignant ovarian...
The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Research Network recently reported the results of an integrated analysis of the genomic features of 373 endometrial carcinomas.1 This report joins previously published results of similar analyses in ovarian, breast, and colorectal cancers, squamous cell carcinoma of...
As recently reported in Nature, investigators in The Cancer Genome Atlas Research Network performed an integrated genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic characterization of 373 endometrial carcinomas, including 307 endometrioid and 66 serous or mixed histology cases, using array- and...
New treatments for melanoma and cervical cancer were cited as the most important subjects of new clinical information presented at the 2013 ASCO Annual Meerting, according to the second annual ASCO Impact Report released recently by Encuity Research. New treatments for melanoma, with an emphasis...
This is the first time I’m going public with the fact that I have advanced ovarian cancer. I thought I could avoid the fate of my mother and her mother, both of whom died of ovarian cancer in their 50s, and live well past my 60s and even 70s. But at 58, I’ve had to accept that that is not likely. I ...
Roche recently announced it has submitted a Premarket Approval (PMA) supplement to the FDA seeking the addition of a cervical cancer primary screening indication for the cobas HPV Test. Approval of the expanded indication would mean the cobas HPV Test could be used as the first-line test rather...
In 1979, when I was just 35 years old, I started experiencing abnormal vaginal bleeding and lower back pain. When a Pap test came back normal, the gynecologist I saw said not to worry about anything, that I was fine. But I wasn’t fine. My symptoms quickly escalated, and I sought the opinion of...
For the first time since the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine became available for adolescent girls in 2006, the vaccination rate for teenagers has stalled, according to data published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The data...
Patients with newly diagnosed advanced ovarian cancer—especially patients with poor performance status—appear to derive benefits from neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by surgery vs primary surgery followed by chemotherapy, according to results of the Medical Research Council (MRC) CHORUS trial. In ...
Patients with advanced ovarian cancer have similar survival outcomes thus far with a weekly regimen of carboplatin/paclitaxel vs the standard every-3-week regimen, but the weekly regimen is much better tolerated with improved quality of life, according to final results of the Multicenter Italian...
Immunohistochemical demonstration of the L1 cell adhesion molecule (L1CAM; CD171) “has been shown to be the best-ever published prognostic factor” in Federation Internationale de Gynecologie et d’Obstetrique (FIGO) stage I, type I endometrial cancers “and shows clear superiority over the standardly ...
In a study of ovarian cancer cells taken from patients, scientists from Georgia Institute of Technology have confirmed that metastasizing cancer cells have a different molecular structure from primary tumor cells and display genetic signatures consistent with epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition....
Maintenance therapy with olaparib extended progression-free survival and the time to disease progression after a second subsequent therapy in patients with platinum-sensitive relapsed serous ovarian cancer and a BRCA mutation, according to an updated analysis of Study 19 presented at the 2013 ASCO...
During September, we observe National Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month to recognize those who have died and recommit ourselves to helping the women who are fighting for their health. Every year, more than 20,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with ovarian cancer, which is the fifth leading...
In the Ovarian Tumor Tissue Analysis Consortium Study recently published by Sieh et al,1 tissue microarrays from 2,933 cases of epithelial ovarian carcinoma demonstrated that progesterone receptor (PR) expression and estrogen receptor (ER) expression were associated with significantly improved...
Few markers of ovarian cancer prognosis have been established, perhaps because potential subtype associations are missed in studies including patients with all histopathologic subtypes. In a study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Weiva Sieh, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Health Research and...
Women with cervical cancer metastasized to para-aortic lymph nodes have historically had a poor prognosis, with 3-year overall survival rates of 25% to 40%.1-3 This has been attributed to the presence of occult systemic disease at the time of presentation and a high rate of distant recurrences...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Sebastien Gouy, MD, of Institut Gustave Roussy and colleagues evaluated survival outcomes in patients with locally advanced cervical cancer and negative positron-emission tomography/computed tomography (PET-CT) imaging results who underwent...
Adding the chemotherapy drug cisplatin to a treatment plan of radiation therapy and high–dose rate brachytherapy for patients with stage IIIB cervical cancer is beneficial, according to research presented recently at the American Society for Radiation Oncology’s 55th Annual Meeting.1 Study Details...
“It was a very exciting session this year, particularly for cervical cancers,” said Paul Haluska MD, PhD, of the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, in speaking of the 2013 ASCO Annual Meeting’s gynecologic oncology session and the abstracts highlighted recently at Best of ASCO in Chicago. In one...
The National Cancer Institute has awarded more than $11 million in funding to Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI), in collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI), to begin an aggressive, multipronged search into preventing and treating ovarian cancer. Distributed over 5 ...
It has been found that focal adhesion kinase (FAK) inhibition sensitizes ovarian cancer to the effects of taxanes. In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Kang and colleagues evaluated the response of taxane-resistant and taxane-sensitive ovarian cancer models to a...
Results from the Costa Rica HPV 16/18 Vaccine Trial indicate that 4-year efficacy against 12-month HPV 16/18 persistent infection was similarly high among women who received one, two, or the recommended three doses of the bivalent HPV16/18 L1 virus-like particle vaccine (Cervarix). The findings...
The optimal use of bevacizumab (Avastin) in ovarian cancer appears to be in high-risk subgroups and in patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, according to results of two phase III trials presented at the 2013 European Cancer Congress (ECC) in Amsterdam. AURELIA investigated the safety and ...
Trebananib, an investigational antiangiogenesis inhibitor with a different mechanism of action than bevacizumab (Avastin), significantly improved progression-free survival in recurrent platinum-resistant and partially platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer in the phase III TRINOVA-1 trial. The addition...
The investigational oral vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) inhibitor cediranib extended progression-free survival when given with platinum-based chemotherapy and improved overall survival when given as maintenance therapy in patients with recurrent ovarian cancer. Experts are hopeful that...
Analysis of data from 58,172 patients identified from Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) registries as having stage I or II endometrial adenocarcinoma found that pelvic radiotherapy and lymphadenectomy were associated with statistically significantly reduced noncancer mortality,...
For women with BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations who choose to have salpingo-oophorectomy to reduce their risks of ovarian and breast cancer, also choosing to have a hysterectomy is “reasonable but not required,” noted Noah D. Kauff, MD, Director of the Ovarian Cancer Screening and Prevention Program and...
Peter R. Dottino, MD, has been appointed Director of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Medicine at the Mount Sinai Health System in New York. He also holds an appointment as Associate Clinical Professor at the Icahn School of Medicine ...
According to an analysis of the Women’s Health Initiative, continuous combined use of estrogen plus progestin reduces the risk of endometrial cancer among postmenopausal women. The study was reported at the 2013 European Cancer Congress by Rowan T. Chlebowski, MD, PhD, Professor and Chief of...
The effects of oral contraceptives on breast and ovarian risks are similar for women with BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations and for women in the general population, according to analyses of observational studies. Oral contraceptive use “is inversely associated with ovarian cancer risk, whereas a modest but...
With the headline, “Rare Cancer Treatments, Cleared by F.D.A. but Not Subject to Scrutiny,” a recent article in The New York Times reported that several medical centers were treating patients with cancer using a hyperthermia system that had received a Humanitarian Use Device approval from the U.S....