Nearly all gynecologic cancers are treated with a multimodality therapeutic approach with surgery, systemic therapy, and sometimes radiotherapy with efficacy informed by classic survival outcomes that may take several months to mature within a given study. This extended period of time potentially subjects patients to unproven therapeutic agents for longer than necessary. To address this, increasing efforts have been made in identifying strategies, such as neoadjuvant- or window-of-opportunity (WOO) studies, to provide earlier insights into the efficacy of potential therapeutic agents. Neoadjuvant therapeutic approaches offer a unique opportunity to examine and even molecularly interrogate surgically extirpated tissue for clinical response indicators, ranging from histopathologic changes, molecular alterations due to targeted therapies, and even alterations in the tumor microenvironment due to immunomodulators. The correlation of such findings with classic survival outcomes is currently uncertain, and the subject of active investigation by the clinical research community.
Gynecologic cancers still result in significant public health burden around the world; therefore, more work is needed to accelerate identifying efficacious therapies. Although the neoadjuvant treatment approach is increasingly used in ovarian cancer, it is not commonly employed in endometrial- and cervical cancers. However, an increasing appreciation of potential early PD and efficacy indicators afforded by neoadjuvant and WOO approaches may stimulate efforts to investigate how this treatment paradigm can be leveraged in the care of women with gynecologic cancers. This Research Topic seeks to inform the clinical research community on novel biomarkers using validated studies, histopathologic findings, and other molecular markers may be identified and interrogated to inform treatment efficacy for gynecologic cancers.
In this Research Topic, authors are invited to share their research focusing on how neoadjuvant approaches, including WOO studies, are leveraged in the care and treatment of gynecologic cancers to gain insights into early clinical efficacy for novel treatments. Novel and established pharmacodynamic (PD) biomarkers for targeted therapies may be presented along with critical analyses of their association with clinical outcome. Elucidation of novel neoadjuvant considerations (e.g., timing, biospecimen for analysis, etc.) to optimize learnings from neoadjuvant studies may also be presented. Manuscripts for consideration should be either original clinical research or translational research utilizing clinical biospecimens with clear clinical applications.
Please note: manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics or computational analysis of public genomic or transcriptomic databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) are out of scope for this section and will not be accepted as part of this Research Topic.
Nearly all gynecologic cancers are treated with a multimodality therapeutic approach with surgery, systemic therapy, and sometimes radiotherapy with efficacy informed by classic survival outcomes that may take several months to mature within a given study. This extended period of time potentially subjects patients to unproven therapeutic agents for longer than necessary. To address this, increasing efforts have been made in identifying strategies, such as neoadjuvant- or window-of-opportunity (WOO) studies, to provide earlier insights into the efficacy of potential therapeutic agents. Neoadjuvant therapeutic approaches offer a unique opportunity to examine and even molecularly interrogate surgically extirpated tissue for clinical response indicators, ranging from histopathologic changes, molecular alterations due to targeted therapies, and even alterations in the tumor microenvironment due to immunomodulators. The correlation of such findings with classic survival outcomes is currently uncertain, and the subject of active investigation by the clinical research community.
Gynecologic cancers still result in significant public health burden around the world; therefore, more work is needed to accelerate identifying efficacious therapies. Although the neoadjuvant treatment approach is increasingly used in ovarian cancer, it is not commonly employed in endometrial- and cervical cancers. However, an increasing appreciation of potential early PD and efficacy indicators afforded by neoadjuvant and WOO approaches may stimulate efforts to investigate how this treatment paradigm can be leveraged in the care of women with gynecologic cancers. This Research Topic seeks to inform the clinical research community on novel biomarkers using validated studies, histopathologic findings, and other molecular markers may be identified and interrogated to inform treatment efficacy for gynecologic cancers.
In this Research Topic, authors are invited to share their research focusing on how neoadjuvant approaches, including WOO studies, are leveraged in the care and treatment of gynecologic cancers to gain insights into early clinical efficacy for novel treatments. Novel and established pharmacodynamic (PD) biomarkers for targeted therapies may be presented along with critical analyses of their association with clinical outcome. Elucidation of novel neoadjuvant considerations (e.g., timing, biospecimen for analysis, etc.) to optimize learnings from neoadjuvant studies may also be presented. Manuscripts for consideration should be either original clinical research or translational research utilizing clinical biospecimens with clear clinical applications.
Please note: manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics or computational analysis of public genomic or transcriptomic databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) are out of scope for this section and will not be accepted as part of this Research Topic.