Lilian Gien, MD, Talks Next Steps for Immunotherapy Research in Recurrent Clear Cell Carcinoma of the Ovary

Lilian Gien, MD, a gynecologic oncologist from Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, Canada, spoke with CancerNetwork® during the 2022 Annual Global Meeting of the International Gynecologic Cancer Society about continued efforts to use immunotherapy in rare gynecologic tumors. At the conference, Gien presented results from a phase 2 trial (NCT03602586) analyzing pembrolizumab (Keytruda) plus the IDO1 inhibitor epacadostat in patients with recurrent clear cell carcinoma of the ovary, for which the response rate was 21% (95% CI, 0.05-0.51) among the 14 patients enrolled.

Although the trial was ultimately deemed futile, rapid enrollment signaled to the investigators that enthusiasm for research in this space justifies further investigation into immunotherapy combinations for clear cell carcinoma of the ovary.

Transcript:

Moving forward, it’s important to keep the possibility of immunotherapy open. It’s good to look at combinations for recurrent clear cell cancers of the ovary. The biggest message from the study was that there was a lot of enthusiasm and rapid accrual, even though it’s a rare tumor. People are enthusiastic because there’s not many options for recurrent clear cell cancers of the ovary. We should be opening trials with recurrent clear cell cancers, even though it’s a rare tumor and open possibilities for different immunotherapy combinations in order to get the appropriate sample size and see if there is a more definitive signal that we can elucidate.

Reference

Gien LT, Enseroo DM, Block MS, et al. Phase II trial of pembrolizumab and epacadostat in recurrent clear cell carcinoma of the ovary: an NRG Oncology Study (NRG-GY016). Presented at: 2022 Annual Global Meeting of the International Gynecologic Cancer Society; New York, NY; September 29-October 1, 2022. Abstract O014.