Dr. Zamarin on Priming Strategies in Ovarian Cancer

Dmitriy Zamarin, MD, PhD, medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses priming strategies in ovarian cancer.

Priming strategies aim to induce an immune response, explains Zamarin. Traditionally, priming has been considered in terms of vaccines, in which administering an antigen was thought to induce an immune response that would cross-react with a patient’s tumor. Now, there are a variety of strategies that are being explored in gynecologic cancers, starting with peptide vaccines or whole proteins vaccines, primarily targeting antigens that are known to be overexpressed in ovarian cancer, such as NY-ESO-1, says Zamarin. Although these vaccines have not been effective as single agents, combination strategies with immune checkpoint inhibitors may prove to be effective.

Many other ongoing studies are aiming to address this question in the advanced setting, and occasionally, in patients with minimal or no residual disease after completing upfront chemotherapy, or chemotherapy in the recurrent setting. Investigators are hopeful that the introduction of some of the newer vaccination strategies, such as neoantigen-based vaccines, may show greater efficacy than what has been observed to date, adds Zamarin.