New Cervical Cancer Treatment Regimen Cuts Risk Of Death By 40%

Giving people with cervical cancer a short course of chemotherapy before radiation therapy dramatically improves survival according to the results of a new clinical trial.

The data published in The Lancet is being heralded as a big breakthrough in the treatment of cervical cancer and uses readily available chemotherapy drugs, given to patients before they receive the standard treatment of radiotherapy plus other chemotherapy.

“This is the biggest improvement in outcome in this disease in over 20 years,” said Dr Mary McCormack, MBBS, PhD, a medical oncologist and the lead investigator of the trial from University College London’s Cancer Institute in a press release. “I’m incredibly proud of all the patients who participated in the trial; their contribution has allowed us to gather the evidence needed to improve treatment of cervical cancer patients everywhere,” said McCormack.

Cervical cancer mostly affects women between the ages of 35 and 44 and almost 14,000 cases are diagnosed in the U.S. annually, according to the American Cancer Society. The chances of survival largely depends on the stage of the disease at diagnosis, and 4,360 people are expected to die from the disease every year in the U.S.

The trial was conducted over a decade between 2012 and 2022 and included 500 patients with cervical cancer from 32 different medical centres in five countries; Brazil, the U.K., Mexico, Italy and India. Patients were randomized to either receive just conventional therapy, which is radiation directed at the tumor followed by chemotherapy, or a short course of additional chemotherapy before the standard radiation and chemotherapy.

After five years, 72% of people in the conventional treatment group were still alive, compared to 80% of those in the additional chemotherapy treatment group. The study also found that the extra chemotherapy reduces the chance of the disease recurring by 35%.

Cervical cancer is principally caused by the human papilloma virus (HPV) and its incidence is dropping in younger women, likely due to the availability and uptake of the HPV vaccine. The vaccine is having a staggering effect on cervical cancer rates in countries where uptake of the vaccine is high, with Scotland recently reporting zero cases of cervical cancer in vaccinated young women there since the vaccine was first rolled out in 2008. But older women who did not receive the vaccine when younger and unvaccinated women are still at risk of developing and dying from cervical cancer.