Dr. O'Malley on the State of Immunotherapy in Ovarian Cancer

David O’Malley, MD, professor, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, The Ohio State University College of Medicine, and director, Division of Gynecologic Oncology at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center—The James, discusses the state of immunotherapy in ovarian cancer.

When looking at immunotherapy agents, physicians must consider who they believe will benefit most from this approach. The frontline setting and the immune environment probably offer the best opportunity to examine immunotherapy, says O’Malley. Several questions remain with regard to what agents immunotherapy should be combined with. For example, should they be paired with PARP inhibitors? Should they be combined with endovascular therapy? Or, should they be combined with both approaches, thereby creating a 3-drug regimen?

Unfortunately, research efforts examining single-agent immunotherapy at this point have not panned out. However, investigators are hopeful that one of the many clinical trials being conducted in the up-front setting will be positive and that those patients who are going to benefit from this approach will be more easily identifiable in the future, concludes O’Malley.