Treatment consensus for locally advanced cervical cancer

Abstract

Concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) involves the simultaneous administration of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, in which low-dose chemotherapy enhances the effectiveness of radiotherapy. This combined approach mitigates tumor recurrence and metastasis, ultimately improving patient prognosis. The primary mechanism behind the increased radiosensitivity induced by concurrent chemotherapy involves inhibiting tumor cell repair and the complementary effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy on different phases of the cell cycle. Despite CCRT application in patients with locally advanced cervical cancer (LACC), the 5-year survival rate remains at 60%. To improve treatment efficacy, a series of exploratory investigations have been conducted, encompassing the integration of targeted therapy, immunotherapy, and utilization of immunomodulatory agents in neoadjuvant protocols preceding CCRT. Although targeted therapies and immunomodulators represent efficacious interventions for LACC management, the scarcity of robust, large-scale evidencebased data necessitates the undertaking of multicenter prospective randomized Phase III clinical trials and dissemination of high-quality publications to elevate the standard of evidence-based medicine. This consensus acts as a valuable resource for clinicians and researchers, highlighting recent seminal evidence-based studies and the evolving landscape of clinical research on targeted and immunomodulatory agents.

Keywords

Immunotherapy / Targeted therapy / Concurrent chemoradiotherapy / Locally advanced cervical cancer

Acknowledgments

None.

Funding

This consensus was supported by the Key Specialization Project of Beijing Natural Science Foundation (Grant No. Z2008), the Clinical Scientist Training Program at Peking University (Grant No. BMU2023PYJH009), Clinical Key Project Innovation Project Class A at the Third Hospital of Peking University (Grant No. BYSYZD2021011), and the National Clinical Key Specialization Construction Project Special Fund (2021).

Conflict of interest

Junjie Wang is the Editor-in-Chief and Ping Jiang is the Editorial Board Member of this journal, but was not in any way nvolved in the editorial and peer-review process conducted for this paper, directly or indirectly. Separately, other authors declared that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have influenced the work reported in this paper.

Author contributions

Conceptualization: Junjie Wang, Ping Jiang, Zi Liu, Yunyan Zhang

Writing-original draft: Ping Jiang, Zhuhui Yuan

Writing-reviewing & editing: All authors

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicable.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Availability of data

Data for this study can be obtained from the cited original articles.