Dr. Hays on Immunotherapy in Ovarian Cancer Treatment

Video

In Partnership With:

John Hays, MD, PhD, discusses the progression of immunotherapy in treating patients with ovarian cancer.

John Hays, MD, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, and member of the Translational Therapeutics Program at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center—James, discusses the progression of immunotherapy in treating patients with ovarian cancer.

As PD-1, PD-L1, and CTLA-4 inhibitors were coming into the mainstream in many cancers a few years ago, there was an interest in investigating these agents in ovarian cancer, explains Hays. As single agents, the response rates ranged from 10% to 15%, which Hays says is “not bad,” but not as successful as he had hoped.

To try and increase response rates, researchers began investigating identifying patient populations that respond best to these drugs and figuring out what drugs can be added to these immunotherapies to make them work better, according to Hays. When chemotherapy is added to immunotherapy, there are better response rates in some cases, but not others. In addition to adding immunotherapy to chemotherapy in the upfront setting, immunotherapy is being explored in combination with chemotherapy or targeted therapy in the maintenance setting, in an effort to increase response rates and the number of patients who do not have disease recurrence, concludes Hays.

Related Videos
Christian Marth, MD, PhD, head, professor, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Innsbruck Medical University
Mansoor Raza Mirza, MD, chief oncologist, Department of Oncology, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital
Judy Hayek, MD, gynecologic oncology fellow, State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate College of Medicine
Leslie M. Randall, MD, MAS, professor, division head, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology – Gynecologic Oncology, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine Obstetrics and Gynecology
Dimitrios Nasioudis, MD, fellow, Gynecologic Oncology, Perelman School of Medicine, the University of Pennsylvania
Sara Corvigno, MD, PhD, translational researcher, oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
I-Chia (Daniel) Liu, MD
Robert W. Mutter, MD
Saad J. Kenderian, MB, CHB, consultant, Division of Hematology, Department of Internal Medicine, Department of Immunology, Department of Molecular Medicine, assistant professor, oncology, immunology, medicine, Mayo Clinic
Mary-Ellen Taplin, MD