Cervical cancer: immunotherapy proven to improve prognosis

(c) MedUni Wien/feelimage - Since 1999, the standard treatment for locally advanced cervical cancer has consisted of external radiotherapy followed by chemotherapy and brachytherapy. As the prognosis for patients is still poor in many cases despite these measures, intensive research is being conducted into new options. In a large-scale clinical trial, an international team involving MedUni Vienna has shown that the immunotherapeutic agent pembrolizumab in combination with chemoradiotherapy leads to a statistically significant improvement compared to chemoradiotherapy alone. The study results were recently published in the leading journal "The Lancet". The randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 3 clinical trial was carried out at 176 medical centres in 30 countries, including Vienna General Hospital under the coordination of study co-author Stephan Polterauer (MedUni Vienna's Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Gynecologic Cancer Unit/CCC and Gynecologic Oncology Working Group) in collaboration with the Department of Radiation Oncology. Adults with newly diagnosed, locally advanced high-risk cervical cancer were randomly selected as test subjects. The 1060 participants were also randomly assigned to treatment between June 2020 and December 2022, 529 of them to the pembrolizumab chemoradiotherapy group and 531 to the placebo chemoradiotherapy group.