Severance Hospital said Monday that it would cooperate with Samsung Medical Center (SMC) and Seoul National University Hospital (SNUH) to conduct clinical trials and develop customized therapy for platinum-resistant recurrent ovarian cancer patients.

Professor Lee Jung- yoon

The researcher team, led by Professor Lee Jung- yoon of the department of obstetrics and gynecology, will conduct an umbrella-type study on biomarker-based target therapy for platinum-resistant recurrent ovarian cancer. Professors Kim Byung-ki from SMC and Kim Jae-won from SNUH will also participate in the study.

The clinical trial comes from the awareness that there is a lack of research on ovarian cancer patients, while the precision medicine that offers patient-customized treatment based on genetic information is gradually expanding into the cancer treatment field.

The study began in December on 68 patients.

The research team plans to divide the patients into four groups according to the biomarker information such as tumor genome analysis, and apply the different anticancer drugs and immuno-anticancer drugs separately.

This study is meaningful in that it focuses on platinum-resistant recurrent ovarian cancer patients suffering from limited treatment options, Severance said.

Although ovarian cancer responds well to medication during the first chemotherapy, most patients experience a recurrence of the disease. After several cycles of chemotherapy, most patients become platinum-resistant, which means that they are no longer responsive to chemotherapy.

In this case, the response rate of the anticancer drug is meager, with only 5 to 10 percent response rate for any drugs.

The team expects that the successful completion of the clinical trial will stimulate the application of targeted anticancer agents and immunotherapeutic agents based on genomic information in platinum-resistant recurrent ovarian cancer.

“We hope that this study will significantly improve the survival rate of patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer who do not have effective treatment options,” Professor Lee said.

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