Drug Discovery and Development

  • Home Drug Discovery and Development
  • Drug Discovery
  • Genomics/Proteomics
  • Oncology
  • Neurological Disease
  • Infectious Disease
  • R&D 100 Awards
  • Pharma 50
    • 2022 Pharma 50
    • 2021 Pharma 50

Lifesaving Ovarian Cancer Chemo Treatment Underutilized, Study Finds

By Drug Discovery Trends Editor | August 5, 2015

Diagram showing stage 3A to 3C ovarian cancer. (Credit: Cancer Research UK / Wikimedia Commons)Women with advanced ovarian cancer who receive intraperitoneal and intravenous (IP/IV) chemotherapy — treatment delivered directly into the abdomen, along with the usual intravenous method — have significantly better survival rates than those who receive IV chemotherapy alone.

The evidence of this is so convincing that in 2006, when a major study showed that the IP method could add 16 months or more to women’s lives, the National Cancer Institute issued a rare recommendation that signified the urgency of changing medical practice to reflect the research.

Yet, today, nearly a decade later, just 41 percent of eligible women are receiving IP chemotherapy, according to a study published Monday in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

The study looked at IP treatment use at six cancer hospitals, all members of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, from 2003 to 2012, and at patient survival rates. Alexi Wright, M.D., of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, and colleagues, analyzed the records of 823 women with Stage 3, optimally cytoreduced ovarian cancer.

The researchers found the 3-year overall survival (OS) was 81 percent among women who received a combination of IP and intravenous (IV) chemotherapy versus 71 percent for patients who received only intravenous chemotherapy. IP/IV therapy use increased briefly after 2006, but overall use among eligible women was 43 percent from 2006 to 2012, they wrote in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Rates varied drastically from one hospital to the next, with 4 percent to 67 percent of patients receiving IP treatment — and at smaller, less prestigious hospitals, the rates are even worse, say the researchers.

Wright told The New York Times, “We suspected that even at the best centers there would be low integration of IP chemotherapy, but we were surprised to see how low it was across academic centers, and also to see how much variation there was between centers.”

Reasons for why IP/IV chemotherapy is so underused include toxicity; inconvenience of an inpatient regimen; and a lack of standard guidelines for how to deliver the treatment and train others, which takes time and money.

This year, 21,290 new cases of ovarian cancer are expected in the U.S., and 14,180 deaths, according to the American Cancer Society.

Further recommended reading: Lifesaving Chemo Tx for Ovarian Cancer Often Ignored, MedPage Today


Filed Under: Drug Discovery

 

Related Articles Read More >

Takeda Pharmaceutical in the Drug Discovery & Development Pharma 50
Takeda’s Takhzyro fares well in pediatric hereditary angioedema study
Novartis in the Pharma 50
Novartis to cut up to 8,000 positions
Gilead Sciences in the Drug Discovery & Development Pharma 50
Gilead resubmits application to FDA for twice-yearly HIV drug lenacapavir
George Floyd mural
How the pandemic and George Floyd made clinical trial diversity a priority

MEDTECH 100 INDEX

Medtech 100 logo
Market Summary > Current Price
The MedTech 100 is a financial index calculated using the BIG100 companies covered in Medical Design and Outsourcing.

Need Drug Discovery news in a minute?

We Deliver!
Drug Discovery & Development Enewsletters get you caught up on all the mission critical news you need. Sign up today.
Enews Signup
Drug Discovery and Development
  • MASSDEVICE
  • DEVICETALKS
  • Medical Design & Outsourcing
  • MEDICAL TUBING + EXTRUSION
  • MEDTECH 100
  • Medical Design Sourcing
  • Subscribe to our Free E-Newsletter
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Advertise With Us
  • R&D World
  • Drug Delivery Business News
  • Pharmaceutical Processing World

Copyright © 2022 WTWH Media LLC. All Rights Reserved. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of WTWH Media
Privacy Policy | Advertising | About Us

Search Drug Discovery & Development

  • Home Drug Discovery and Development
  • Drug Discovery
  • Genomics/Proteomics
  • Oncology
  • Neurological Disease
  • Infectious Disease
  • R&D 100 Awards
  • Pharma 50
    • 2022 Pharma 50
    • 2021 Pharma 50