Latest progress in treatment of gynaecological cancers

Summary

The present report gives the scope of relevant contributions focusing on the treatment of gynaecologic malignancies presented at the 44th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) held from May 30 to June 3, 2008 in Chicago, Illinois. Some new data will directly influence the routine in gynaecologic oncology, while other data have to await their confirmation in ongoing studies until their clinical impact can be definitively evaluated. Regarding the radiotherapeutic adjuvant management of intermediate-high-risk endometrial cancers, the PORTEC-2 trial clearly demonstrated the non-inferiority of vaginal brachytherapy (VBT) as compared with external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) of the whole pelvis with regard to disease-free and overall survival and revealed a higher rate of treatment-related complications and side-effects for EBRT and consequently a higher quality of life in patients treated with VBT. In chemotherapeutic management of advanced and recurrent cervical cancer the four-armed GOG 204 trial demonstrated the best therapeutic index for the cisplatin-paclitaxel regimen. Hence, the authors advocated that this doublet should be used as a control arm in further GOG protocols investigating this setting. Fundamental changes in the routine first-line chemotherapy for ovarian cancer should be expected from the outcome of the phase III Japanese Gynecologic Oncology Group trial that revealed a survival benefit for weekly dose-dense administration of paclitaxel as compared with standard three-weekly carboplatin-paclitaxel.