IJGC Podcast

In this episode of the IJGC podcast, Editor-in-Chief Dr. Pedro Ramirez, is joined by Professor Andreas du Bois. Professor du Bois completed his medical degree in 1987 at the University of Freiburg, Germany. He subsequently trained in general surgery at Krankenhaus Wolfach Personalwohnheim and gynaecology and obstetrics at the University of Freiburg, leading to his registration as Fellow for Gynaecology and Obstetrics in 1993.

In 1993, Prof. du Bois became a Consultant in the Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics at St. Vincentius-Kliniken, Karlsruhe. He then served as Director of the Department of Gynaecology and Gynaecologic Oncology, Horst-Schmidt-Kliniken, Wiesbaden (19992010) before taking up his current roles as Director of the Departmenf of Gynaecology and Gynaecologic Oncology at Kliniken Essen-Mitte, and Associate Professor at Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany.

Prof. du Bois has been the Principal Investigator of several pivotal and practice-changing international clinical trials in gynaecological oncology. He founded the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Gynaekologische Onkologie (AGO) Study Group in 1993 and co-founded the European Network of Gynaecological Oncological Trial groups (ENGOT) in 2007. He has previously been a member of the German Guideline Comittee for guidelines in breast, cervical, and ovarian cancer, Chairman of the German quality assurance programme for ovarian cancer (QS-OVAR), and member of the Gynecological Cancer InterGroup (GCIG) executive board and European Society of Gynaecological Oncology (ESGO) council. Prof. du Bois has been Chairman and a member of the Scientific Committee of the Ovarian Cancer Consensus Conference of the GCIG, and served as a member of the Scientific Committee of the 1st European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO)-ESGO Ovarian Cancer Consensus Conference 2018. Prof. du Bois is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), ESGO, International Gynecologic Cancer Society (ISGC), German Cancer Society, and AGO. He has authored more than 500 publications with more than 33,500 citations, and has a Google Scholar h index of 86.

In this episode of the IJGC podcast, Editor-in-Chief Dr. Pedro Ramirez, is joined by Dr. Jason Wright to discuss SLN in endometrial atypical hyperplasia. Dr. Wright is the Sol Goldman Associate Professor and Chief of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at Columbia University.

Highlights:

-Performance of sentinel lymph node mapping is increasing in women undergoing hysterectomy for complex atypical endometrial hyperplasia.

-Sentinel lymph node mapping in women with atypical endometrial hyperplasia does not increase perioperative morbidity or mortality.

In this episode of the IJGC podcast, Editor-in-Chief Dr. Pedro Ramirez, is joined by Dr. Mario Leitao to discuss prophylactic negative pressure wound therapy RCT. Dr. Leitao is currently an Attending Surgeon in the Department of Surgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and a Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Weill Cornell Medical College. He currently serves as Program Director for the Gynecologic Oncology Fellowship. Dr. Leitao is also the Director for the Minimal Access and Robotic Surgery Program in the Department of Surgery for MSKCC. Dr. Mario Leitao is currently an Attending Surgeon in the Department of Surgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and a Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Weill Cornell Medical College. He currently serves as Program Director for the Gynecologic Oncology Fellowship. Dr. Leitao is also the Director for the Minimal Access and Robotic Surgery Program in the Department of Surgery for MSKCC.

Highlights

1. SSI is a common postoperative complication that leads to significant healthcare costs in the near- and far-term

2. In our RCT, the use of a negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) system did not improve wound complications (Superficial SSI) in a cohort of patients undergoing mostly laparotomy for gynecologic malignancies with closed laparotomy incisions.

3. There was also no signal of benefit in the small subgroup of morbidly obese patients.

4. Increasing BMI was the only independently associated risk for the development of a wound complication

In this episode of the IJGC podcast, Editor-in-Chief Dr. Pedro Ramirez, is joined by Drs. Ate van der Zee and Brian Slomovitz to discuss the GROINSS-V-II/GOG 270 Trial. Dr. Brian Slomovitz is a Gynecologic Oncologist at Broward Health and Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Wertheim College of Medicine at Florida International University. He is an internationally recognized leader in gynecologic oncology clinical trials, specifically in immunotherapy and novel biomarker therapeutics. He also is a leader in sentinel lymph node detection for gynecologic malignancies. Dr. Ate Van der Zee is Chairman of the Board of Directors at the University Medical Center Groningen and professor of Gynaecological Oncology. His current research focuses on translational and clinical research in vulvar cancer. Together with Dr. Oonk he leads a world-wide consortium (GROINSS-V), which performs landmark clinical studies in vulvar cancer. Dr. van der Zee combines his current position chairman position with clinical work and academic research.

Highlights

•Radiotherapy instead of inguinofemoral lymphadenectomy is a safe treatment option for vulvar cancer patients with a metastasis Ate van der Zee and Brian Slomovitz (@AteZee / @gyncancermd / @umcg / @browardhealth, @FIU)

In this episode of the IJGC podcast, Editor-in-Chief Dr. Pedro Ramirez, is joined by Drs. Katherina Grette and Nathaniel Jones to discuss racial inequities in immunotherapy trials and their article, “Not immune to inequity: minority under-representation in immunotherapy trials for breast and gynecologic cancers,” which is the Lead Article in IJGC’s November 2021 issue.

(https://ijgc.bmj.com/content/early/2021/09/21/ijgc-2021-002557)

Dr. Katherine Grette attended medical school at the University of Washington, then completed her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of South Alabama prior to joining faculty. She currently practices as a generalist and serves as the Assistant Director of Resident Research for the department.

Dr. Nate Jones completed residency at Mountain Area Health Education Center in Asheville, NC followed by fellowship in Gynecologic Oncology at New York Presbyterian Hospitals: Columbia and Cornell. He currently serves as Assistant Professor in Gynecologic Oncology at the University of South Alabama Mitchell Cancer Institute. His research interests center on targeted cancer therapies, molecular and genomic characteristics of gynecologic malignancies, and addressing racial disparities in gynecologic cancer care.

Highlights

•Minority women are poorly represented in immunotherapy clinical trials for breast and gynecologic cancers

•Enrollment of black women is especially low, accounting for only 5% of participants

•Minority participation in clinical trials must increase to improve equity in health outcomes

In this episode of the IJGC podcast, Editor-in-Chief Dr. Pedro Ramirez, is joined by Professor Nicoletta Colombo to discuss pembrolizumab for persistent, recurrent, metastatic cervical cancer: KEYNOTE 826. Professor Nicoletta Colombo graduated in medicine in 1980, completing specialty training in obstetrics and gynaecology in 1984 at the University of Milan, Italy.

After a training period at Charing Cross Hospital and Royal Marsden Hospital in London, she became a Clinical Research Associate at the Kaplan Cancer Center, New York University, where she worked from 1984 until 1986. Professor Colombo then worked as a member of the Junior and later the Senior Faculty at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Milan. In 1994 she became Deputy Director and in 2001 Director of the Medical Gynaecologic Oncology Division, European Institute of Oncology (IEO), Milan, Italy. Since 2002 she has held the position of Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Milan-Bicocca. In 2008, she became Director of the Ovarian Cancer Centre at IEO and in 2014 Chair of the Program of Gynaecology. Principal investigators of several international clinical trials, Professor Colombo is also author of several publications in the field of gynaecologic oncology, and a member of various professional societies such as the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the Society of Gynaecologic Oncologists (SGO) and the International Gynaecological Cancer Society (IGCS). She is also Past President of the European Society of Gynaecologic Oncology (ESGO) and was Chair of the first ESMO-ESGO-ESTRO Consensus Conference in endometrial cancer ( 2015) and the first ESMO-ESGO Consensus Conference in ovarian Cancer ( 2018). From 2016-2020 she was Subject Editor of ESMO Clinical Guidelines for Gynecological Malignancies and she is currently member of the steering committee of ESMO Clinical guidelines.

Highlights

1)adding pembrolizumab to chemotherapy with or without bevacizumab provides statistically significant, clinically meaningful improvements in progression-free and overall survival in patients with persistent, recurrent, or metastatic cervical cancer

2)The addition of pembrolizumab was also associated with a higher response rate and a longer response duration

3)The safety profile for pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy with or without bevacizumab was manageable