2012 EDUCATIONAL BOOK - American Society of Clinical Oncology

during 2011. The aims were to analyze the current positioning
of the Society; define its future as Europe’s leader in
education, research, and care in the field of gynecologic
cancers; and ensure ESGO’s continuous development as an
active resource of knowledge, information, collaboration and
networking for its members and all professionals in the field.
Having in mind the ESGO mission to improve the health
and well-being of European women with genital and breast
cancers, core fields of interest were defined and general
objectives were established: 1) education—to provide high
quality educational activities and improve training in
gynaecologic oncology in Europe; 2) care—to establish multidisciplinary
standards of care and act as the European
authority in the field; 3) research—to support platforms for
collaborative clinical, translational, and basic research in
gynecologic cancers; 4) collaboration—to promote collaboration
among scientific societies, health care professionals,
patient organizations, business, industry, and governmental
bodies; 5) awareness—to raise public and governmental
awareness of gynecologic cancers and their prevention and
treatment; and 6) sustainability—to ensure ESGO’s sustainability
and positioning as the leading European professional
medical society in its field.
Education and Outreach
One of ESGO’s primary missions is to provide high-quality
educational activities and improve training in gynecologic
oncology in Europe.
The highlight of the educational activities is organizing
the ESGO international bi-annual meeting, which has a
main focus on education, but with an ongoing trend to
present science and research. The ESGO 17 proved to be a
resounding success, with 2,700 delegates and speakers who
gathered from around the world in the cultured city of
KEY POINTS
● The European Society of Gynaecological Oncology
(ESGO) is the principal European society contributing
to the study, prevention, and treatment of gynecological
cancers.
● ESGO objectives were recently revisited through a
strategic planning process and include education,
care, research, collaboration, awareness, and sustainability.
● The highlight of the educational activities is ESGO’s
international bi-annual meeting, which has a main
focus on education, but with an ongoing trend to
present science and research.
● During ESGO 17 the Society organized a seminar for
European patient groups with an interest in gynecologic
cancers with the aim of facilitating different
patient-related activities across Europe.
● The European Network of Young Gynaecologic Oncologists
(ENYGO) is a network for young physicians
and trainees in gynecologic oncology and related
subspecialties that represents the needs and aspirations
of all trainees involved in the study, prevention,
and treatment of gynecologic cancers.
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BRANTNEROVA, MANCHANDA, AND COLOMBO
Milan, Italy. The structure of the congress included keynote
lectures, debates, state-of-the art sessions, and focused sunrise
sessions, together with oral and poster presentations
and satellite symposia sponsored by pharmaceutical companies.
The keynote lectures were presented by Prof. Umberto
Veronesi and Prof. Rene Bernards. Prof. Veronesi focused on
the progress in breast cancer management, highlighting his
lifetime achievements on the quality of life QOL of women
with breast cancer. By proposing a new paradigm “from
maximum tolerable treatment to minimum effective treatment,”
he was able to completely modify the care of patients
with breast cancer: going from the anatomic concept of
cancer spread to the biologic one, the therapy for these
patients changed from the mutilated radical mastectomy to
the conservative quadrantectomy, from the complete lymph
node dissection to the sentinel-node biopsy and more recently
from the lengthy external radiotherapy to the intraoperative
radiotherapy. All these achievements led to a
substantial improvement in the QOL of women with breast
cancer.
Prof. Bernards highlighted that fact that only 22% of
patients with cancer derive substantial benefit from their
treatment, mainly because of the intra- and intertumor
heterogeneity. To answer the basic questions of whom to
treat and in what way, a more sophisticated approach is
needed. Molecular diagnostics has the potential to replace
the microscope in identifying prognostic and predictive
markers that should guide a more personalized cancer
treatment.
One of the main highlights of the plenary session included
the presentation of the results of the secondary end point—
QOL—of an international study which randomly assigned
patients with recurrent ovarian cancer to receive maintenance
olaparib or placebo. 4 There was no statistically significant
difference in the QOL scales between treatment arms.
The median time to worsening QOL was 2.8 months for
olaparib compared with 3.7 months for placebo, and 70%
of patients receiving olaparib experienced nausea compared
with 43% receiveing placebo (hazard ratio [HR] � 2.18).
Results of a phase II study combining olaparib with
pegylated liposomal doxorubicin (PLD) in patients with
advanced solid tumors (28 ovarian cancer, 13 breast cancer,
three others) who had received at least three prior chemotherapy
regimens were presented by Del Conte and colleagues
during the ovarian oral session. 5 The maximum
tolerated dose was not reached. Common adverse events
(AEs) of any grade included stomatitis (73%), nausea (71%),
asthenia (57%), pyrexia (43%), anorexia (41%), vomiting
(41%), cough (39%), neutropenia (27%) and palmar-plantar
erythrodysesthesia (25%). Serious AEs occurred in 27% of
patients, with pneumonitis being most common (n � 3). Two
patient deaths were considered “possibly related” to study
therapy. Treatment with olaparib and PLD resulted in two
(5%) complete responses (CRs), 11 (25%) partial responses
(PRs), and 13 (30%) incidents of stable disease (SD). Of
the 13 patients who achieved a PR or better, 11 were BRCA
mutation positive and two were BRCA mutation negative or
unknown.
Dr. Fischerova received the award for the best poster
presentation for her work, “The Role of Ultrasound in
Planning Fertility Sparing Surgery and Individual Treatment
in Early Stage Cervical Cancer.” She analyzed the