Gynecologic Cancers Symposium Puts Emphasis on Unsettled Questions

Hot topics, emerging therapies, and tough cases from the front lines of patient care will be featured during the 9th Annual International Symposium on Ovarian Cancer and Gynecologic Malignancies,® scheduled for October 5 in Philadelphia.

The one-day meting, which Physicians’ Education Resource (PER) is hosting, will bring together noted experts in the field to dissect some of the most pressing questions about choosing the best strategies for treating patients.

Maurie Markman, MD, one of the meeting’s course directors, said the content would appeal to medical oncologists, gynecologic oncologists, surgeons, and any other healthcare professionals who work with patients diagnosed with gynecologic cancers.

Markman, who is senior vice president for Clinical Affairs and national director for Medical Oncology at Cancer Treatment Centers of America, said the structure of the meeting is designed to encourage audience participation.

“A very exciting part of this meeting is that there are going to be a number of debates,” said Markman, who also is the editor-in-chief of OncologyLive. “One of the things that characterizes the management of gynecologic malignancies, as well as other cancers, is that we really don’t have definitive answers, and there are a number of opinions.

“The idea here will be that we’re going to take some difficult topics, we’re going to have ‘pro’ and ‘con’ debates and let the audience themselves decide on what might be the best answer, at least as of today, to some of these complex questions,” said Markman.

As of press time, there were six expert debates on the agenda. These include:

• Ovarian cancer—Separate debates on whether patients with newly diagnosed stage III disease should undergo laparotomy with aggressive bulk reduction before chemotherapy, and how best to use angiogenic inhibitors in patients with newly diagnosed stage III/IV bulky residual or recurrent disease.
• Endometrial cancer—Whether patients with locally advanced, stage III-IVA disease should undergo surgical resection followed by chemotherapy plus volume-directed radiation.
• Cervical cancer—Whether patients with recurrent disease metastatic to sites outside the pelvis should be treated with chemotherapy plus an angiogenic inhibitor.
• Uterine cancer—Whether patients with metastatic disease should receive ifosfamide plus paclitaxel.
• Genome analysis—Whether genomic analysis is critical for the management of patients with gynecologic malignancies.
• In addition to the debates, the meeting will showcase the latest developments in gynecologic research, including angiogenesis inhibitors, PARP inhibitors, and other novel agents.

Also serving as course directors for the meeting are James Tate Thigpen, MD, director of the Division of Medical Oncology at the University of Mississippi School of Medicine in Jackson, and Michael J. Birrer, MD, PhD, director of Gynecologic Medical Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and a professor at Harvard Medical School.

The faculty includes Robert A. Burger, MD, director of the Women’s Cancer Center at Fox Chase Cancer Center; Mark A. Morgan, MD, director of Gynecology Oncology at Pennsylvania Hospital; and Russell J. Schilder, MD, director of Gynecologic Medical Oncology at the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson. These institutions are in Philadelphia.

To register, visit www.gotoper.com.