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In low-grade, recurrent endometrial cancer, patients who show stable or progressive disease on chemotherapy can surprisingly respond to hormonal therapies like progesterone. Although the response may be slow, it highlights an important, potentially overlooked option for this specific patient population.
Potent responses to chemo-immunotherapy are promoting a shift toward neoadjuvant treatment for advanced endometrial cancer. Waiting six cycles often achieves a response sufficient to allow for a minimally invasive hysterectomy instead of a more extensive primary debulking surgery.
Clinicians should consider re-biopsying tumors at recurrence, not upfront. Endometrial cancer can evolve, and a metastatic site may develop new targetable markers, like HER2, that were not present in the primary tumor, opening up new treatment avenues.
As various maintenance therapies (immunotherapy, ADCs) are integrated into endometrial cancer treatment, the next major clinical question is defining how long these agents need to be continued to maximize benefit while minimizing long-term toxicity and patient burden.
Even within recent major clinical trials like HER2CLIMB-05, less than half of eligible hormone receptor-positive patients received endocrine therapy. This highlights a critical and widespread gap in clinical practice, as this treatment adds significant benefit.
While chemo plus immunotherapy showed a benefit in MS-stable patients, it's not curative. The expert predicts clinicians may shift away from using it universally upfront, potentially favoring other agents first for this non-curative but beneficial therapy.
Counterintuitively, the SOFT trial showed pre-menopausal women with BCI-low tumors (less driven by estrogen receptors) derived more benefit from an aromatase inhibitor (AI) plus ovarian suppression compared to tamoxifen. This suggests the most aggressive endocrine therapy is crucial for biologically aggressive, less ER-sensitive cancers.
Clinicians increasingly re-biopsy recurrent or metastatic endometrial tumors, rather than relying on the primary tumor's profile. This is because biomarkers like HER2 can change or emerge as the disease progresses, opening up new targeted therapy options that were not previously available.
Counterintuitively, in premenopausal women on ovarian suppression, the more potent endocrine therapy (Aromatase Inhibitor) provided the most benefit over Tamoxifen in BCI-Low tumors. These tumors are less ER-driven, suggesting other pathways make them vulnerable to maximal estrogen deprivation.
Unlike other cancers, re-treating with immunotherapy after recurrence is considered a viable strategy for dMMR endometrial cancer. Experts theorize that these tumors are constantly evolving and may benefit from a "re-education" of the immune system, challenging the conventional wisdom that progression on a drug class means permanent resistance.
A patient recurring five years after initial chemotherapy is considered platinum-sensitive and likely to respond to chemotherapy again. This long interval means that re-treatment with a chemo-immunotherapy combination is a strong option, even if newer targeted agents are also available, as the tumor has not demonstrated recent chemo-resistance.