Dr. Zamarin Discusses Ongoing Work With Immunotherapy in Ovarian Cancer

Dmitriy Zamarin, MD, PhD, medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses ongoing work with immunotherapy in patients with ovarian cancer.

Several studies have attempted to define the role of checkpoint inhibitors in both the newly diagnosed and advanced settings, Zamarin says. Most of these studies have been done in patients with advanced platinum-resistant disease. There was initial excitement with these trials, but single-agent anti—PD-1/PD-L1 has only demonstrated response rates of approximately 10%. Researchers also don’t have an effective biomarker for immune response.

However, even if researchers can tailor immunotherapy to a biomarker-selected patient population, about 90% of patients with ovarian cancer will be left without effective treatment. Thus, ongoing research is combining checkpoint inhibition with chemotherapy, a strategy that has shown particular promise in advanced lung cancer. This strategy is being tested in newly diagnosed and recurrent ovarian cancer.