Dr. Crane on the Toxicity Profile of Combinations for Ovarian Cancer

Erin K. Crane, MD, MPH, gynecologic oncologist, Levine Cancer Institute, Carolinas HealthCare System, discusses the toxicity profile of combination regimens for patients with ovarian cancer.

When you combine cytotoxic chemotherapy drugs there tends to be a higher toxicity profile, but physicians are learning more about this from ongoing trials, explains Crane. Physicians should be careful with bone marrow suppression and nausea, but there are medications that can decrease these adverse events and improve the patients' quality of life.

However, a remaining challenge in the field has been the underrepresentation of women, particularly minorities, in clinical trials, says Crane. That coupled with the fact that there has been decreased funding for trials in the past couple of years has affected the development of treatment. According to Crane, enrollment for clinical trials for patients with gynecologic malignancies has decreased by 90%. However, work is being done with pharmaceutical industries to open more trials. Getting women enrolled in trials, particularly minority patients who disproportionally are not enrolled, is an unmet need.