Dr. George Discusses Treatment of Uterine Leiomyosarcoma

Suzanne George, MD, assistant professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, clinical director, Center for Sarcoma and Bone Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses the evolving treatment paradigm for patients with uterine leiomyosarcoma.

Uterine sarcomas are extremely rare, George says, accounting for approximately 3% of uterine cancers. Due to their low incidence rates, it is difficult to detect uterine sarcomas in their early stages. Recent studies suggest that chemotherapy regimens with docetaxel, gemcitabine, or anthracycline have activity in these patients. Each of these drugs has similar efficacy, and George says that is important for patients to understand that they have multiple treatment options available to them.

With the advent of olaratumab (Lartruvo), a novel PDGF antibody, and its approval in the United States and Europe, the paradigm has expanded even further. The addition of olaratumab to doxorubicin resulted in an overall survival advantage when compared with doxorubicin alone in patients with metastatic soft tissue sarcoma, including those with leiomyosarcoma.

A confirmatory phase III trial is currently underway, according to George, who added that olaratumab is also being evaluated in combination with other chemotherapies to better understand how this agent might further be used in the general treatment of patients with soft tissue sarcomas and in the subset of patients with uterine sarcomas.