Cervical Cancer

In this edition of Clinical Quandaries Eder A. Arango Bravo, MD, and colleagues present a 63 year old woman who has cervical cancer with kidney failure and additional comorbidities.

Those immunized between the ages of 12 and 13 in England experienced a significant estimated reduction in cervical cancer and grade 3 cervical intraepithelial neoplasia incidence rates compared with unvaccinated women.

Patients with recurrent or metastatic cervical cancer treated with cemiplimab experienced an improved overall survival, progression-free survival, and overall response rate, leading to priority review from the FDA.

Tisotumab vedotin may now be used to treat patients with recurrent or metastatic cervical cancer after the FDA's decision to grant the agent an accelerated approval.

Results of a single-arm study indicate that patients with previously treated metastatic cervical cancer may derive benefit from treatment with balstilimab plus zalifrelimab.

Examination of tisotumab vedotin plus key standard-of-care therapeutics shows promise for the treatment of cervical cancer in the frontline setting and beyond.

Patients with cervical cancer receiving pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy with or without bevacizumab in the frontline setting had improvement in overall survival, potentially representing a new standard of care regimen.

The World Health Organization has published new recommendations to aid in the global prevention of cervical cancer through more accessible screenings and treatments.

Merck’s press release announced positive data from the KEYNOTE-826 trial investigating pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy with or without bevacizumab for patients with cervical cancer.

The anti–PD-1 antibody is being assessed as therapy for patients with recurrent or metastatic cervical cancer after positive results indicate improved responses with the monotherapy.

Awaited outcomes of the phase 3 OUTBACK trial presented at the 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting do not indicate benefit of adjuvant chemotherapy for patients with cervical cancer.

Based on results of the phase 2 innovaTV 204 trial, the FDA granted priority review to tisotumab vedotin as a potential therapy for patients with recurrent or metastatic cervical cancer with disease progression on or after chemotherapy.

Although responses were limited in patients with paclitaxel-pretreated cervical cancer, eribulin may still show promise in those who are naïve to treatment with the chemotherapy agent.

Promising overall survival results lead to an early stop to a phase 3 trial of cemiplimab versus chemotherapy in relapsed/refractory cervical cancer, according to the drug’s developer.

These phase 3 study results support the use of sequential chemoradiation as a preferred adjuvant treatment following radical hysterectomy for patients with early-stage cervical cancer.

Seagen and Genmab hope to receive accelerated approval from the FDA for tisotumab vedotin monotherapy as treatment for patients with cervical cancer in the recurrent or metastatic setting.

“This study for the first time systematically examined the risks of injuries during the cervical diagnostic workup,” said corresponding author Qing Shen, PhD.

Following the new ASCCP-led national consensus guidelines for managing abnormal cervical cancer screening tests, these new guidelines estimate risk based on an individual’s risk factors, thus allowing for more personalized care management.

Balstilimab as a single agent and combined with zalifrelimab demonstrated promising objective response rates, regardless of PD-L1 expression, and a tolerable safety profile in patients with recurrent or metastatic cervical cancer.

“Results from this study suggest that tisotumab vedotin has the potential to be a new therapy for patients with previously treated recurrent and/or metastatic cervical cancer,” said lead study author Robert L. Coleman, MD, FACOG, FACS.

Researchers suggested this test “helps to clarify a woman’s risk of disease, reduce the potential for over- or under-treatment, and is a major step forward in individualizing a woman’s care.”

Researchers suggested that this 6-week window may represent a critical time point at which decisions could be made regarding treatment escalation for this patient population.

The director of special projects at the Union for International Cancer Control spoke about the strategy released by the World Health Organization and what needs to occur to achieve the goals laid out by the organization.

The researcher from Quest Diagnostics spoke about a recent study which confirmed the benefit of using liquid-based cytology in cotesting for cervical cancer.

The new guidelines suggest the need to phase out cotesting and cytology, shifting towards primary HPV testing starting at age 25 years.

The trial is evaluating tisotumab vedotin administered every 3 weeks for the treatment of patients who have relapsed or progressed on or after prior treatment for recurrent or metastatic cervical cancer.

With February being National Cancer Prevention Month, here are the latest updates in cancer prevention.

If successfully implemented, researchers found that over the next century, cervical cancer mortality would be reduced by almost 99% and save more than 62 million women’s lives.

Researchers suggested that the receipt of 1, 2, or 3 doses of an HPV vaccine by females aged 15 to 19 years was associated with a lower incidence of preinvasive cervical disease when compared to unvaccinated females.

Immunotherapy could replace chemotherapy in some patients with recurrent/metastatic cervical and vaginal or vulvar cancers.