VIDEO: Significant need for better patient education in endometrial cancer

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The greatest areas of unmet need and endometrial cancer are several. One is patient facing. I am always surprised that the number of people that I see that did not realize that post-menopausal bleeding, even just the littlest amount is not normal after menopause and needs to be evaluated. Numerous stories present as: “I just had a little bit of spotting with wiping, I didn't think that was a problem.” And so I really do feel like there is a significant need for patient education to understand that even just one episode of light, mild bleeding is abnormal and needs to see a physician about. Now, 90% of the time post-menopausal bleeding is not from cancer, but the majority of cancer presents as post-menopausal bleeding.

Additionally, as we spoke about previously, really the molecular subtyping and the de-escalation and escalation of different care based on different histologies, different somatic testing is really the forefront of where we're going with endometrial cancer. We've had numerous studies recently published in more advanced stage patients, stage three or four, showing the benefit of immunotherapy to specifically, very large clinical trials demonstrating significant improvement, and we're looking at all of these trials, is looking at who gets what for their treatment and who benefits. We've had other data, including one of clinical trials that I was associated with, looking at PARP inhibitor maintenance and endometrial cancer that has also been combined in other studies, and so similar to other cancer subtypes, I think the future of endometrial cancer and the unmet need is especially in advanced or recurrent cancer, deciding who gets what treatment, which immunotherapy, which PARP inhibitor, and when they get it, do they benefit most in an upfront setting, do they benefit most in a recurrent setting. It's a very exciting time for the treatment and endometrial cancer with very significant advances over the last several years.