Dr Victoria Bae-Jump Discusses Standard of Care, Novel Therapies For Endometrial Cancer

Victoria Bae-Jump, MD, PhD, associate professor, gynecologic oncology, University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses the current standard of treatment for patients with advanced endometrial cancer as well as the role novel therapies, such as targeted therapies and immunotherapy, play in the treatment of the disease.

Transcript

What is the current standard of treatment for patients with advanced endometrial cancer?

Our current standard of care treatment for advanced endometrial cancer would usually be surgery first, if it looks doable by their imaging, meaning it’s confined to the abdomen and pelvis, there’s not distant disease like in the lungs or someplace where we don’t think we can resect it. Then, usually that’s followed by chemotherapy. The 2 drugs that have the greatest efficacy for endometrial cancer right now is paclitaxel and carboplatin, and usually that’s 6 cycles of both treatments. Then, plus or minus radiation, depending on the treating gynecologic oncologist’s preference and sort of risk factors and things in where the cancer was and wasn’t during the surgery.

Do targeted therapies or immunotherapy play a role in the treatment of endometrial cancer? Are there any identified biomarkers to predict response to these therapies?

So, right now there haven’t been any FDA approved treatments for endometrial cancer, which would include targeted therapies, actually since hormonal therapy. So, we really desperately need more research on targeted therapies for endometrial cancer for sure. We are looking at many things, including mTOR inhibitors. We’re looking at antiangiogenic agents.

I think the things we’re most excited about is PD-1 inhibitor therapy with mismatched repair deficient tumors looking like a good biomarker for immunotherapy for endometrial cancer. Also, endometrial cancers have a fair amount of tumors that are mismatched repair deficient. So, I think right now that’s our most exciting biomarker and treatment, and there is FDA approval for PD-1 inhibitors in patients across cancers that have mismatched repair deficient tumors.