Janice S. Kwon

A brief mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral intervention improves sexual functioning versus wait-list control in women treated for gynecologic cancer

GOAL The goal of this study was to evaluate a mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral intervention for sexual dysfunction in gynecologic cancer survivors compared to a wait-list control group. METHODS Thirty-one survivors of endometrial or cervical cancer (mean age 54.0, range 31-64) who self-reported significant and distressing sexual desire and/or sexual arousal concerns were assigned either to three, 90-minute mindfulness-based cognitive behavior therapy sessions or two months of wait-list control prior to entering the treatment arm. Validated measures of sexual response, sexual distress, and mood, as well as laboratory-evoked physiological and subjective sexual arousal were assessed at pre-, one month post-, and 6-months following treatment. RESULTS There were no significant effects of the wait-list condition on any measure. Treatment led to significant improvements in all domains of sexual response, and a trend towards significance for reducing sexual distress. Perception of genital arousal during an erotic film was also significantly increased following the intervention despite no change in physiologically-measured sexual arousal. CONCLUSIONS A brief mindfulness-based intervention was effective for improving sexual functioning. Geographic restrictions permitted only a select sample of survivors to participate, thus, the generalizability of the findings is limited. Future studies should aim to develop online modalities for treatment administration to overcome this limitation.

Expanding the Criteria for BRCA Mutation Testing in Breast Cancer Survivors

PURPOSE Every year approximately 25% of women diagnosed with breast cancer are younger than 50 years of age, and almost 10% of them have a BRCA mutation. Not all potential carriers are identified by existing criteria for BRCA testing. We estimated the costs and benefits of different BRCA testing criteria for women with breast cancer younger than 50 years. METHODS We developed a Markov Monte Carlo simulation to compare six criteria for BRCA mutation testing: (1) no testing (reference); (2) medullary breast cancer in patients younger than 50 years; (3) any breast cancer in patients younger than 40 years; (4) triple negative (TN) breast cancer in patients younger than 40 years; (5) TN breast cancer in patients younger than 50 years; (6) any breast cancer in patients younger than 50 years. Net health benefits were life expectancy and quality-adjusted life expectancy, and primary outcome was the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER). The model estimated the number of new breast and ovarian cancer cases. RESULTS BRCA mutation testing for all women with breast cancer who were younger than 50 years could prevent the highest number of breast and ovarian cancer cases, but with unfavorable ICERs. Testing women with TN breast cancers who were younger than 50 years was cost-effective with an ICER of

Prophylactic salpingectomy and delayed oophorectomy as an alternative for BRCA mutation carriers.

8,027 per year of life gained (

A clinically applicable molecular-based classification for endometrial cancers.

9,084 per quality-adjusted life-year), and could reduce subsequent breast and ovarian cancer risks by 23% and 41%, respectively, compared with the reference strategy. CONCLUSION Testing women with TN breast cancers who were younger than 50 years for BRCA mutations is a cost-effective strategy and should be adopted into current guidelines for genetic testing.

Subtype-specific mutation of PPP2R1A in endometrial and ovarian carcinomas

OBJECTIVE: Prophylactic bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy is advised for women with BRCA mutations, but there are adverse consequences of premature menopause. The majority of BRCA-associated ovarian cancers appear to arise in the fallopian tube; therefore, salpingectomy may be an alternative to bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy. We compared the costs and benefits of salpingectomy with bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy among BRCA mutation carriers. METHODS: We developed a Markov Monte Carlo simulation model to compare three strategies for risk reduction in women with BRCA mutations: 1) bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy; 2) bilateral salpingectomy; and 3) bilateral salpingectomy with delayed oophorectomy. Net health benefits were measured in years-of-life expectancy and quality-adjusted life-year expectancy, and the primary outcome was the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio. The model estimated the number of future breast and ovarian cancers and cardiovascular deaths attributed to premature menopause with each strategy. RESULTS: Bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy was associated with the lowest cost and highest life expectancy compared with the other two strategies. When quality-of-life measures were included, salpingectomy followed by delayed oophorectomy yielded the highest quality-adjusted life expectancy with incremental cost-effectiveness ratios of

A Phase II Study of Bevacizumab in Combination With Definitive Radiotherapy and Cisplatin Chemotherapy in Untreated Patients With Locally Advanced Cervical Carcinoma: Preliminary Results of RTOG 0417

37,805 and

RTOG 0417: Efficacy of Bevacizumab in Combination With Definitive Radiation Therapy and Cisplatin Chemotherapy in Untreated Patients With Locally Advanced Cervical Carcinoma

89,680 per quality-adjusted life-year for BRCA1 and BRCA2, respectively, relative to salpingectomy alone. Bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy yielded the lowest number of future breast and ovarian cancers compared with the other two strategies. CONCLUSION: Bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy offers the greatest risk reduction for breast and ovarian cancer among BRCA mutation carriers. However, when considering quality-adjusted life expectancy, bilateral salpingectomy with delayed oophorectomy is a cost-effective strategy and may be an acceptable alternative for those unwilling to undergo bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy.

Comparison of clinical schemas and morphologic features in predicting Lynch syndrome in mutation-positive patients with endometrial cancer encountered in the context of familial gastrointestinal cancer registries.

Background:Classification of endometrial carcinomas (ECs) by morphologic features is inconsistent, and yields limited prognostic and predictive information. A new system for classification based on the molecular categories identified in The Cancer Genome Atlas is proposed.Methods:Genomic data from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) support classification of endometrial carcinomas into four prognostically significant subgroups; we used the TCGA data set to develop surrogate assays that could replicate the TCGA classification, but without the need for the labor-intensive and cost-prohibitive genomic methodology. Combinations of the most relevant assays were carried forward and tested on a new independent cohort of 152 endometrial carcinoma cases, and molecular vs clinical risk group stratification was compared.Results:Replication of TCGA survival curves was achieved with statistical significance using multiple different molecular classification models (16 total tested). Internal validation supported carrying forward a classifier based on the following components: mismatch repair protein immunohistochemistry, POLE mutational analysis and p53 immunohistochemistry as a surrogate for ‘copy-number’ status. The proposed molecular classifier was associated with clinical outcomes, as was stage, grade, lymph-vascular space invasion, nodal involvement and adjuvant treatment. In multivariable analysis both molecular classification and clinical risk groups were associated with outcomes, but differed greatly in composition of cases within each category, with half of POLE and mismatch repair loss subgroups residing within the clinically defined ‘high-risk’ group. Combining the molecular classifier with clinicopathologic features or risk groups provided the highest C-index for discrimination of outcome survival curves.Conclusions:Molecular classification of ECs can be achieved using clinically applicable methods on formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded samples, and provides independent prognostic information beyond established risk factors. This pragmatic molecular classification tool has potential to be used routinely in guiding treatment for individuals with endometrial carcinoma and in stratifying cases in future clinical trials.

Preventing Future Cancers by Testing Women With Ovarian Cancer for BRCA Mutations

PPP2R1A mutations have recently been described in 3/42 (7%) of clear cell carcinomas of the ovary. PPP2R1A encodes the α‐isoform of the scaffolding subunit of the serine/threonine protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) holoenzyme. This putative tumour suppressor complex is involved in growth and survival pathways. Through targeted sequencing of PPP2R1A, we identified somatic missense mutations in 40.8% (20/49) of high‐grade serous endometrial tumours, and 5.0% (3/60) of endometrial endometrioid carcinomas. Mutations were also identified in ovarian tumours at lower frequencies: 12.2% (5/41) of endometrioid and 4.1% (2/49) of clear cell carcinomas. No mutations were found in 50 high‐grade and 12 low‐grade serous carcinomas. Amino acid residues affected by these mutations are highly conserved across species and are involved in direct interactions with regulatory B‐subunits of the PP2A holoenzyme. PPP2R1A mutations in endometrial high‐grade serous carcinomas are a frequent and potentially targetable feature of this disease. The finding of frequent PPP2R1A mutations in high‐grade serous carcinoma of the endometrium but not in high‐grade serous carcinoma of the ovary provides clear genetic evidence that these are distinct diseases. Copyright

Costs and benefits of opportunistic salpingectomy as an ovarian cancer prevention strategy.

PURPOSE Concurrent cisplatin-based chemoradiotherapy (CRT) is the standard treatment for locally advanced cervical cancer. RTOG 0417 was a Phase II study exploring the safety and efficacy of the addition of bevacizumab to standard CRT. METHODS AND MATERIALS Eligible patients with bulky tumors (Stage IB-IIIB) were treated with once-weekly cisplatin (40 mg/m(2)) chemotherapy and standard pelvic radiotherapy and brachytherapy. Bevacizumab was administered at 10 mg/kg intravenously every 2 weeks for three cycles. Treatment-related serious adverse event (SAE) and other adverse event (AE) rates within the first 90 days from treatment start were determined. Treatment-related SAEs were defined as any Grade ≥ 4 vaginal bleeding or thrombotic event or Grade ≥ 3 arterial event, gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding, or bowel/bladder perforation, or any Grade 5 treatment-related death. Treatment-related AEs included all SAEs and Grade 3 or 4 GI toxicity persisting for >2 weeks despite medical intervention, Grade 4 neutropenia or leukopenia persisting for >7 days, febrile neutropenia, Grade 3 or 4 other hematologic toxicity, and Grade 3 or 4 GI, renal, cardiac, pulmonary, hepatic, or neurologic AEs. All AEs were scored using the National Cancer Institute Common Terminology Criteria (CTCAE) v 3.0 (MedDRA version 6.0). RESULTS A total of 60 patients from 28 institutions were enrolled between 2006 and 2009, and of these, 49 patients were evaluable. The median follow-up was 12.4 months (range, 4.6-31.4 months).The median age was 45 years (range, 22-80 years). Most patients had FIGO Stage IIB (63%) and were of Zubrod performance status of 0 (67%). 80% of cases were squamous. There were no treatment-related SAEs. There were 15 (31%) protocol-specified treatment-related AEs within 90 days of treatment start; the most common were hematologic (12/15; 80%). 18 (37%) occurred during treatment or follow-up at any time. 37 of the 49 patients (76%) had cisplatin and bevacizumab administered per protocol, and 46 of the 49 (94%) had both external beam and brachytherapy administered per protocol or with acceptable variation. CONCLUSION Bevacizumab in addition to standard pelvic chemoradiotherapy for locally advanced cervical cancer is feasible and safe with respect to the protocol-specified treatment-related SAEs and AEs.